A Danish Parsonage Part 34

"Is it too much for you, mother?" said Hardy. "It will be a long day; but the next day, weather permitting, we should be under weigh for Copenhagen, and you would have rest."

"It will be a long day, John," replied his mother, "but not too long.

I like Pastor Lindal's plan."

"What is the meaning of the name Phanefjord?" asked Hardy. "Is it derived from the Greek?"

"There was a giant called Grnjette, or the Green Giant; he gave his name to the fjord, which is called Grnsund. He was married to a giantess called Phane; hence Phanefjord. They are said to be buried at Harbolle, and their graves are one hundred yards (English) long. He was accustomed to ride through the woods with his head under his left arm, with a spear, and surrounded by hounds. The Bnder always left a sheaf of oats for his horse, so that he should not ride over their freshly sown fields, when the Jette or giant went on his hunting excursions. There is even an epitaph on Grn and Phane:--

'Nu hviler Grn med Phane sin; Som traettede rasken Hjort og Hind.

Tak, Bonde, G.o.d! den dyre Gud, Nu gaar du tryg af Sundet ud.'

Literally--

'Now rests Grn and his Phane; They followed the quick buck and hind.

Thank, peasant, the good G.o.d, That now you can safely go through the fjord.'

There is a story of Grn. He halted one night and knocked at a Bonde's door, and told him to hold his hounds by a leash. Grn rode away, and was absent two hours. At length he returned, but across his horse was a mermaid, which he had shot. This was before the time of powder. Grn said to the Bonde, 'I have hunted that mermaid for seven years, and now I have got her.' He then asked for something to drink, and when he was served with it he gave the Bonde some gold money; but it was so hot it burnt through his hand, and the money sunk in the earth. Grn laughed, and said, 'As you have drank with me, you shall have something, so take the leash you have held my hounds with.' Grn rode away, and the Bonde kept the leash, and as long as he did so all things prospered; but at last he thought it was of little value, and threw it away. He then gradually grew poorer and poorer, and died in great poverty."

"A very good legend, and thank you, Herr Pastor," said Mrs. Hardy.

"There is an old ballad," continued the Pastor, "called 'The Pilgrim Stone,' which opens with a mother calling her three daughters to go to the early Catholic church service of the times, and then the water was so shallow between Men and Falster that they could jump over it. The three daughters were attacked by three robbers and killed by them.

They put their bodies in sacks; but they were seized by the father and his men, and then it appeared that the three robbers were brothers to the murdered girls, having been stolen, when they were very young, on their way to school. The two eldest were hung, and the youngest made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and when he returned he lived a few years at Phanefjord, and was buried where the pilgrim stone marks the place.

The ballad is of the simplest character and incomplete; but such is the story. Under different conditions it is recited in other places in Denmark; but it is dramatic in all cases."

"It is indeed dramatic," said Mrs. Hardy. "The stories of giants appear to have had their origin from natural forces, as ice, or the heat of summer, but have been blended with human attributes."

The drive to Men's Klint from Grnsund was full of interest from Pastor Lindal's knowledge of the past history of so many places.

"There are not so many traditions in the low part of Men as in Hie Men; that is where the cliffs are," said the Pastor. "The cliffs are chalk, with layers of flint, and were supposed to be peopled with Underjordiske or underground people, the chief of whom was called the Klinte Konge, or cliff king. Klint is the Danish word for cliff. His queen is described as being very beautiful, and she resided at the place called Dronningstol, or the queen's throne or chair, and near it was her sceptre, in old times called Dronningspir, but now called Sommerspir. The Klinte Konge was supposed to reside at Kongsberg. He was always at war with another Klinte Konge, at Rygen, and there is an old ballad on the subject. It is said that when Denmark is in danger, the Klinte Konge and his army can be seen ready to resist the invader.

There are very many variations of this superst.i.tious story, more or less picturesque."

"Are there any stories of communications between the Underjordiske and mortals?" asked Mr. Hardy.

"There is such a story. A woman called Margrethe Skaelvigs was going to Emelund to borrow a dress of Peer Munk's wife, to be married in, when an old woman met her, and asked where she was going. Margrethe told her. 'When you pa.s.s here on Sat.u.r.day, I will lend you a bridal dress;'

and she gave Margrethe a dress of cloth of gold, and told her to return it in eight days; but that if Margrethe saw no one when she brought it back, she might keep the dress. No one appeared, and Margrethe kept the dress."

"The conjecture might be that the dress was given her by her intended husband," said Hardy, "who adopted this method of giving her a dress.

I should like to impose on Helga in the same way."

"Don't talk nonsense, John," said Mrs. Hardy, who feared that it might not be agreeable to Pastor Lindal; and, to turn his thoughts in another direction, asked him if there were not other legends of a different type.

"Yes; there is one very commonly repeated," he replied. "A Bonde had twenty pigs ranging through the wood by Men's Klint. He lost them, and after searching for a whole year, he met Gamle Erik (the devil; literally, Old Erik) riding on a pig and driving nineteen before him, and making a great noise by beating on an old copper kettle. The pigs were all in good case, except the one Gamle Erik rode, which bore traces of bad treatment. The Bonde shouted and called, and Gamle Erik was frightened, and dropped the copper kettle, and let the pigs be pigs. So the Bonde had not only his pigs, but a copper kettle to recollect Gamle Erik by."

Mrs. Hardy was much pleased with the scenery about the cliffs, and the contrast of the dark blue sea against the white chalk, and the varied prospects in the woods.

The drive had been full of interest, and Mrs. Hardy thanked Pastor Lindal for his suggesting it, and the pleasure of hearing his narrations on the very places with which they were connected, and added--

"I shall come again another year, Herr Pastor, on purpose to enjoy your society, if you will act as guide."

"G.o.d willing, it will be a pleasure to me," said he; "but these few days have had their effect on me. I appear to see things with a clearer view, that at home have been difficult to me. Travelling develops the mind, and gives it a broader cast of thought. You, who have travelled so much, Mrs. Hardy, appear to have been influenced by the process."

"Thank you for your compliment, Herr Pastor," said Mrs. Hardy. "It is well put."

At eight the following day, the yacht was pa.s.sing Men's Klint, at sea, bound for Copenhagen. There was a stiff breeze from the westward, and in pa.s.sing Praest Bay the yacht was in a short rough beam sea, that made things very lively to all on board, except possibly the Pastor, as his ears gradually a.s.sumed a greenish tint.

John Hardy consulted the pilot, and the yacht was brought up and anch.o.r.ed under Stevn's Klint, in shelter, much to Pastor Lindal's comfort, who appeared at lunch fully recovered from his sea-sickness.

"Praest," said he, "is so called after a priest called Anders; he was a monk at the time of the Reformation, but adopted the reformed religion. He had only a small copper coin, which always returned to him when he spent it, and received no other payment for his services.

In the arms of the town of Praest is a man in a priest's dress, supposed to be in his memory."

"Were there any Underjordiske in the cliff at the yacht's bow?" asked Hardy.

"There was fabled to be an Elle Konge," replied Pastor Lindal, "or king of the elves, and he occupied not only Stevn's Klint, but also an adjoining church, where a place in the wall is shown as his residence, and is called Elle Kongen's Kammer, or the king of the elves' chamber.

In the neighbourhood of this church are the remains of an oak wood.

The trees therein are said to have been trees by day, but the soldiers of the elf king by night. The church referred to is Storehedinge, and was built by a monk against the wishes of the great man of the locality, who, when the church was built, cut off the monk's head. The figure of a monk's head is on a stone in the wall by the altar.

"The church a little to the south of the lighthouse is called Hierup, and was built in fulfilment of the vow of a seaman when in danger. As the cliff crumbles away, the church is said to go a c.o.c.k's footstep back on the mainland every Christmas night."

"What is the meaning of 'rup' as a termination to so many Danish places?" asked Hardy.

"It is your English 'thorp,' or Swedish 'torp,' or German 'dorf,' a village," replied the Pastor. "Vandstrup, for instance, is 'the village by the water,' as the Danish word for water is Vand. It is, as you know, close to the river."

The pilot had predicted that the wind would lessen at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the yacht got under weigh, and, carrying plenty of sail and full steam, made a rapid pa.s.sage across Kige Bay, so disturbing sometimes to the breakfast of the Kibenhavner, who trusts himself to a pleasure excursion on its waters.

Off Dragr, the jack was again hoisted for the Copenhagen pilot, and the Rosendal steam yacht was at anchor off the Custom House at Copenhagen, before a late dinner, that evening.

"We must fill up with coal and water, mother, and it had better be done here," said Hardy; "it would give us time for an excursion to Roeskilde to see the Domkirke, or elsewhere."

"No, John," said Mrs. Hardy. "I want to purchase many articles that you will want at Rosendal after you are married, that you would never think of; and I must leave something for the Pastor to tell me next summer."

"But what shall I do with Pastor Lindal tomorrow?" asked John Hardy.

"He will like to be left to himself, to go where he wishes," replied his mother; and she was right. As the yacht left Copenhagen a day or so after, Mrs. Hardy refused to visit the beautiful vicinity of Copenhagen. "No, John; and no, Herr Pastor," she said. "I must keep something to see for other years, and something to look forward to and wish to see. I even decline to hear the story of the soldier who shot from Kronborg Castle a cow with a cannon in Sweden, and that although he did not hurt the milkmaid. The Herr Pastor must keep something to tell me another season."

"But, mother, we can anchor at Elsinore, and you could see Kronborg Castle," urged her son.

"So I will another year, John," she replied. "Get your mud-hook up, as you call it, and let me have my way. I hope not only to visit more of Denmark, but also of Sweden and Norway, and hope not only the Herr Pastor will be with us, but his daughter."

"Thank you kindly," said the Pastor, shaking hands with her in the manner frequent in Denmark.

CHAPTER XXVI.