{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12481/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12481","id":"gutenberg_12481","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12481","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - European","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Scandinavia -- History"],"text":"HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH\n\n\n\n\n               [Illustration: (Publisher colophon)]\n\n                       THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n                    NEW YORK \u00b7 BOSTON \u00b7 CHICAGO\n                      ATLANTA \u00b7 SAN FRANCISCO\n\n                     MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED\n                    LONDON \u00b7 BOMBAY \u00b7 CALCUTTA\n                             MELBOURNE\n\n                 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.\n                              TORONTO\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: FREDERIKSBORG\n\n  _See page 182_\n]\n\n\n\n\n                            HERO TALES\n                         OF THE FAR NORTH\n\n                                By\n                           JACOB A. RIIS\n\n\n\n               AUTHOR OF \u201cHOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES\u201d\n                    \u201cTHE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN\u201d\n                       \u201cTHE OLD TOWN,\u201d ETC.\n\n                             New York\n                       THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n                               1919\n\n                       _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                         COPYRIGHT, 1910,\n                     BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.\n\n        Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1910.\n\n\n                           Norwood Press\n               J. S. Cushing Co.\u2014Berwick & Smith Co.\n                       Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n                    THIS BOOK OF MY DEAD HEROES\n\n                   I DEDICATE TO MY LIVING HERO\n\n\n                        THEODORE ROOSEVELT\n\n\n           MAY IT BE MANY YEARS BEFORE THE LAST CHAPTER\n\n                 OF HIS SPLENDID WHOLESOME LIFE IS\n\n                    WRITTEN IN THE PAGES OF OUR\n\n                         COUNTRY\u2019S HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nWhen a man knocks at Uncle Sam\u2019s gate, craving admission to his\nhouse, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a\nhindrance instead of a help. If now we were to ask what he brings,\nnot only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this\nstranger, what ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country\nhe left that shaped his hopes and ambitions,\u2014might it not, if the\nanswer were right, be a help to a better mutual understanding\nbetween host and guest? For the _Mayflower_ did not hold all who\nin this world have battled for freedom of home, of hope, and of\nconscience. The struggle is bigger than that. Every land has its\nGeorge Washington, its Kosciusko, its William Tell, its Garibaldi,\nits Kossuth, if there is but one that has a Joan d\u2019Arc. What we\nwant to know of the man is: were its heroes his?\n\nThis book is an attempt to ask and to answer that question for my\nown people, in a very small and simple way, it is true, but perhaps\nabler pens with more leisure than mine may follow the trail it has\nblazed. I should like to see some Swede write of the heroes of his\nnoble, chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight\nhere, though I count them with my own. I should like to hear the\nepic of United Italy, of proud and freedom-loving Hungary, the\nswan-song of unhappy Poland, chanted to young America again and\nagain, to help us all understand that we are kin in the things that\nreally count, and help us pull together as we must if we are to\nmake the most of our common country.\n\nThese were my\u2014our\u2014heroes, then. Every lad of Northern blood, whose\nheart is in the right place, loves them. And he need make no\nexcuses for any of them. Nor has he need of bartering them for the\ngreat of his new home; they go very well together. It is partly\nfor his sake I have set their stories down here. All too quickly\nhe lets go his grip on them, on the new shore. Let him keep them\nand cherish them with the memories of the motherland. The immigrant\nAmerica wants and needs is he who brings the best of the old home\nto the new, not he who threw it overboard on the voyage. In the\ngreat melting-pot it will tell its story for the good of us all.\n\nTo those who wonder that I have left the Saga era of the North\nuntouched, I would say that I have preferred to deal here only with\ndownright historic figures. For valuable aid rendered in insuring\naccuracy I am indebted to the services of Dr. P.A. Rydberg, Dr. J.\nEmile Blom\u00e9n, Gustaf V. Lindner, and Professor Joakim Reinhard.\nMy thanks are due likewise to many friends, Danes by birth like\nmyself, who have helped me with the illustrations.\n\n  J. A. R.\n\n  RICHMOND HILL,\n  June, 1910.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA                                   1\n\n  HANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE TO GREENLAND                        31\n\n  GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN                           61\n\n  ABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH                        87\n\n  KING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG              125\n\n  HOW THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID                        153\n\n  KING CHRISTIAN IV                                          179\n\n  GUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING                                205\n\n  KING AND SAILOR, HEROES OF COPENHAGEN                      239\n\n  THE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR ALONE                            263\n\n  CARL LINN\u00c9, KING OF THE FLOWERS                            277\n\n  NIELS FINSEN, THE WOLF-SLAYER                              305\n\n\n\n\nA KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA\n\n\nThe Eighteenth Century broke upon a noisy family quarrel in the\nnorth of Europe. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the royal hotspur\nof all history, and Frederik of Denmark had fallen out. Like their\npeople, they were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent\non settling the old question which was the better man. After the\nfashion of the lion and the unicorn, they fought \u201call about the\ntown,\u201d and, indeed, about every town that came in their way, now\nthis and now that side having the best of it. On the sea, which was\nthe more important because neither Swedes nor Danes could reach\ntheir fighting ground or keep up their armaments without command\nof the waterways, the victory rested finally with the Danes. And\nthis was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the like\nof which is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, Peder\nTordenskjold. Rising in ten brief years from the humblest place\nbefore the mast, a half-grown lad, to the rank of admiral, ennobled\nby his King and the idol of two nations, only to be assassinated on\nthe \u201cfield of honor\u201d at thirty, he seems the very incarnation of\nthe stormy times of the Eleven Years\u2019 War, with which his sun rose\nand set; for the year in which peace was made also saw his death.\n\nPeder Jansen Wessel was born on October 28, 1690, in the city of\nTrondhjem, Norway, which country in those days was united with\nDenmark under one king. His father was an alderman with eighteen\nchildren. Peder was the tenth of twelve wild boys. It is related\nthat the father in sheer desperation once let make for him a pair\nof leathern breeches which he would not be able to tear. But the\nlad, not to be beaten so easily, sat on a grind-stone and had\none of his school-fellows turn it till the seat was worn thin, a\npiece of bravado that probably cost him dear, for doubtless the\nexasperated father\u2019s stick found the attenuated spot.\n\nSince he would have none of the school, his father had him\napprenticed out to a tailor with the injunction not to spare the\nrod. But sitting cross-legged on a tailor\u2019s stool did not suit the\nlad, and he took it out of his master by snowballing him thoroughly\none winter\u2019s day. Next a barber undertook to teach him his trade;\nbut Peder ran away and was drifting about the streets when the King\ncame to Norway. The boy saw the splendid uniforms and heard the\nstory of the beautiful capital by the \u00d6resund, with its palaces and\ngreat fighting ships. When the King departed, he was missing, and\nfor a while there was peace in Trondhjem.\n\nDown in Copenhagen the homeless lad was found wandering about by\nthe King\u2019s chaplain, who, being himself a Norwegian, took him home\nand made him a household page. But the boy\u2019s wanderings had led\nhim to the navy-yard, where he saw mid-shipmen of his own size at\ndrill, and he could think of nothing else. When he should have\nbeen waiting at table he was down among the ships. For him there\nwas ever but one way to any goal, the straight cut, and at fifteen\nhe wrote to the King asking to be appointed a midshipman. \u201cI am\nwearing away my life as a servant,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI want to give it,\nand my blood, to the service of your Majesty, and I will serve you\nwith all my might while I live!\u201d\n\nThe navy had need of that kind of recruits, and the King saw to it\nthat he was apprenticed at once. And that was the beginning of his\nstrangely romantic career.\n\nThree years he sailed before the mast and learned seamanship,\nwhile Charles was baiting the Muscovite and the North was resting\non its arms. Then came Pultava and the Swedish King\u2019s crushing\ndefeat. The storm-centre was transferred to the North again, and\nthe war on the sea opened with a splendid deed, fit to appeal to\nany ardent young heart. At the battle in the Bay of Kj\u00f6ge, the\n_Dannebrog_, commanded by Ivar Hvitfeldt, caught fire, and by its\nposition exposed the Danish fleet to great danger. Hvitfeldt could\ndo one of two things: save his own life and his men\u2019s by letting\nhis ship drift before the wind and by his escape risking the rest\nof the fleet and losing the battle, or stay where he was to meet\ncertain death. He chose the latter, anchored his vessel securely,\nand fought on until the ship was burned down to the water\u2019s edge\nand blew up with him and his five hundred men. Ivar Hvitfeldt\u2019s\nname is forever immortal in the history of his country. A few years\nago they raised the wreck of the _Dannebrog_, fitly called after\nthe Danish flag, and made of its guns a monument that stands on\nLangelinie, the beautiful shore road of Copenhagen.\n\nFired by such deeds, young Wessel implored the King, before he had\nyet worn out his first midshipman\u2019s jacket, to give him command of\na frigate. He compromised on a small privateer, the _Ormen_, but\nwith it he did such execution in Swedish waters and earned such\nrenown as a dauntless sailor and a bold scout whose information\nabout the enemy was always first and best, that before spring they\ngave him a frigate with eighteen guns and the emphatic warning\n\u201cnot to engage any enemy when he was not clearly the stronger.\u201d He\nimmediately brought in a Swedish cruiser, the _Alabama_ of those\ndays, that had been the terror of the sea. In a naval battle in the\nBaltic soon after, he engaged with his little frigate two of the\nenemy\u2019s line-of-battle ships that were trying to get away, and only\nwhen a third came to help them did he retreat, so battered that he\nhad to seek port to make repairs. Accused of violating his orders,\nhis answer was prompt: \u201cI promised your Majesty to do my best, and\nI did.\u201d King Frederik IV, himself a young and spirited man, made\nhim a captain, jumping him over fifty odd older lieutenants, and\ngave him leave to war on the enemy as he saw fit.\n\nThe immediate result was that the Governor of G\u00f6teborg, the enemy\u2019s\nchief seaport in the North Sea, put a price on his head. Captain\nWessel heard of it and sent word into town that he was outside\u2014to\ncome and take him; but to hurry, for time was short. While waiting\nfor a reply, he fell in with two Swedish men-of-war having in tow\na Danish prize. That was not to be borne, and though they together\nmounted ninety-four guns to his eighteen, he fell upon them like a\nthunderbolt. They beat him off, but he returned for their prize.\nThat time they nearly sank him with three broad-sides. However, he\nran for the Norwegian coast and saved his ship. In his report of\nthis affair he excuses himself for running away with the reflection\nthat allowing himself to be sunk \u201cwould not rightly have benefited\nhis Majesty\u2019s service.\u201d\n\nHowever, the opportunity came to him swiftly of \u201crightly\nbenefiting\u201d the King\u2019s service. After the battle of Kolberger\nHeide, that had gone against the Swedes, he found them beaching\ntheir ships under cover of the night to prevent their falling into\nthe hands of the victors. Wessel halted them with the threat that\nevery man Jack in the fleet should be made to walk the plank, saved\nthe ships, and took their admiral prisoner to his chief. When\nothers slept, Wessel was abroad with his swift sailer. If wind and\nsea went against him, he knew how to turn his mishap to account.\nDriven in under the hostile shore once, he took the opportunity,\nas was his wont, to get the lay of the land and of the enemy. He\nlearned quickly that in the harbor of Wesens\u00f6, not far away, a\nSwedish cutter was lying with a Danish prize. She carried eight\nguns and had a crew of thirty-six men; but though he had at the\nmoment only eighteen sailors in his boat, he crept up the coast at\nonce, slipped quietly in after sundown, and took ship and prize\nwith a rush, killing and throwing overboard such as resisted. In\nSweden mothers hushed their crying children with his dreaded name;\non the sea they came near to thinking him a troll, so sudden and\nunexpected were his onsets. But there was no witchcraft about it.\nHe sailed swiftly because he was a skilled sailor and because he\nmissed no opportunity to have the bottom of his ship scraped and\ngreased. And when on board, pistol and cutlass hung loose; for it\nwas a time of war with a brave and relentless foe.\n\nHis reconnoitring expeditions he always headed himself, and\nsometimes he went alone. Thus, when getting ready to take\nMarstrand, a fortified seaport of great importance to Charles, he\nwent ashore disguised as a fisherman and peddled fish through the\ntown, even in the very castle itself, where he took notice, along\nwith the position of the guns and the strength of the garrison,\nof the fact that the commandant had two pretty daughters. He was\na sailor, sure enough. Once when ashore on such an expedition,\nhe was surprised by a company of dragoons. His men escaped, but\nthe dragoons cut off his way to the shore. As they rode at him,\nreaching out for his sword, he suddenly dashed among them, cut\none down, and, diving through the surf, swam out to the boat, his\nsword between his teeth. Their bullets churned up the sea all about\nhim, but he was not hit. He seemed to bear a charmed life; in all\nhis fights he was wounded but once. That was in the attack on the\nstrongly fortified port of Str\u00f6mstad, in which he was repulsed with\na loss of 96 killed and 246 wounded, while the Swedish loss footed\nup over 1500, a fight which led straight to the most astonishing\nchapter in his whole career, of which more anon.\n\nAll Denmark and Norway presently rang with the stories of\nhis exploits. They were always of the kind to appeal to the\nimagination, for in truth he was a very knight errant of the sea\nwho fought for the love of it as well as of the flag, ardent\npatriot that he was. A brave and chivalrous foe he loved next to a\nloyal friend. Cowardice he loathed. Once when ordered to follow a\nretreating enemy with his frigate _Hvide \u00d6rnen_ (the White Eagle)\nof thirty guns, he hugged him so close that in the darkness he ran\nhis ship into the great Swedish man-of-war _\u00d6sel_ of sixty-four\nguns. The chance was too good to let pass. Seeing that the _\u00d6sel\u2019s_\nlower gun-ports were closed, and reasoning from this that she\nhad been struck in the water-line and badly damaged, he was for\nboarding her at once, but his men refused to follow him. In the\ndelay the _\u00d6sel_ backed away. Captain Wessel gave chase, pelted her\nwith shot, and called to her captain, whose name was _S\u00f6stjerna_\n(sea-star), to stop.\n\n\u201cRunning away from a frigate, are you? Shame on you, coward and\npoltroon! Stay and fight like a man for your King and your flag!\u201d\n\nSeeing him edge yet farther away, he shouted in utter exasperation,\n\u201cYour name shall be dog-star forever, not sea-star, if you don\u2019t\nstay.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut all this,\u201d he wrote sadly to the King, \u201cwith much more which\nwas worse, had no effect.\u201d\n\nHowever, on his way back to join the fleet he ran across a\nconvoy of ten merchant vessels, guarded by three of the enemy\u2019s\nline-of-battle ships. He made a feint at passing, but, suddenly\nturning, swooped down upon the biggest trader, ran out his boats,\nmade fast, and towed it away from under the very noses of its\nprotectors. It meant prize-money for his men, but their captain did\nnot forget their craven conduct of the night, which had made him\nlose a bigger prize, and with the money they got a sound flogging.\n\nThe account of the duel between his first frigate, _L\u00f6vendahl\u2019s\nGalley_, of eighteen guns, and a Swede of twenty-eight guns reads\nlike the doings of the old vikings, and indeed both commanders\nwere likely descended straight from those arch fighters. Wessel\ncertainly was. The other captain was an English officer, Bactman by\nname, who was on the way to deliver his ship, that had been bought\nin England, to the Swedes. They met in the North Sea and fell to\nfighting by noon of one day. The afternoon of the next saw them at\nit yet. Twice the crew of the Swedish frigate had thrown down their\narms, refusing to fight any more. Vainly the vessel had tried to\nget away; the Dane hung to it like a leech. In the afternoon of the\nsecond day Wessel was informed that his powder had given out. He\nhad a boat sent out with a herald, who presented to Captain Bactman\nhis regrets that he had to quit for lack of powder, but would he\ncome aboard and shake hands?\n\nThe Briton declined. Meanwhile the ships had drifted close enough\nto speak through the trumpet, and Captain Wessel shouted over from\nhis quarter-deck that \u201cif he could lend him a little powder, they\nmight still go on.\u201d Captain Bactman smilingly shook his head,\nand then the two drank to one another\u2019s health, each on his own\nquarter-deck, and parted friends, while their crews manned what was\nleft of the yards and cheered each other wildly.\n\nWessel\u2019s enemies, of whom he had many, especially among the\nnobility, who looked upon him as a vulgar upstart, used this\nincident to bring him before a court-martial. It was unpatriotic,\nthey declared, and they demanded that he be degraded and fined. His\ndefence, which with all the records of his career are in the Navy\nDepartment at Copenhagen, was brief but to the point. It is summed\nup in the retort to his accusers that \u201cthey themselves should be\nrebuked, and severely, for failing to understand that an officer in\nthe King\u2019s service should be promoted instead of censured for doing\nhis plain duty,\u201d and that there was nothing in the articles of war\ncommanding him to treat an honorable foe otherwise than with honor.\n\nIt must be admitted that he gave his critics no lack of cause.\nHis enterprises were often enough of a hair-raising kind, and he\nhad scant patience with censure. Thus once, when harassed by an\nAdmiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: \u201cThe\nbiggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I\nshall not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but\nto an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing\ncan\u2019t be done.\u201d He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in\ncharge of the whole North Sea fleet. No wonder he had enemies.\n\nHowever, the King was his friend. He made him a nobleman, and gave\nhim the name Tordenskjold. It means \u201cthunder shield.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, by the powers,\u201d he swore when he was told, \u201cI shall thunder\nin the ears of the Swedes so that the King shall hear of it!\u201d And\nhe kept his word.\n\nCharles had determined to take Denmark with one fell blow. He had\nan army assembled in Skaane to cross the sound, which was frozen\nover solid. All was ready for the invasion in January 1716. The\npeople throughout Sweden had assembled in the churches to pray\nfor the success of the King\u2019s arms, and he was there himself to\nlead; but in the early morning hours a strong east wind broke up\nthe ice, and the campaign ended before it was begun. Charles then\nturned on Norway, and laid siege to the city of Frederikshald,\nwhich, with its strong fort, Frederiksteen, was the key to that\ncountry. A Danish fleet lay in the Skagerak, blocking his way of\nre\u00ebnforcements by sea. Tordenskjold, with his frigate, _Hvide\n\u00d6rnen_, and six smaller ships (the frigate _Vindhunden_ of sixteen\nguns, and five vessels of light draught, two of which were heavily\narmed), was doing scouting duty for the Admiral when he learned\nthat the entire Swedish fleet of forty-four ships that was intended\nto aid in the operations against Frederikshald lay in the harbor of\nDynekilen waiting its chance to slip out. It was so well shielded\nthere that its commander sent word to the King to rest easy;\nnothing could happen to him. He would join him presently.\n\nTordenskjold saw that if he could capture or destroy this fleet\nNorway was saved; the siege must perforce be abandoned. And Norway\nwas his native land, which he loved with his whole fervid soul. But\nno time was to be lost. He could not go back to ask for permission,\nand one may shrewdly guess that he did not want to, for it would\ncertainly have been refused. He heard that the Swedish officers,\nsecure in their stronghold, were to attend a wedding on shore the\nnext day. His instructions from the Admiralty were: in an emergency\nalways to hold a council of war, and to abide by its decision. At\ndaybreak he ran his ship alongside _Vindhunden_, her companion\nfrigate, and called to the captain:\n\n\u201cThe Swedish officers are bidden to a wedding, and they have\nforgotten us. What do you say\u2014shall we go unasked?\u201d\n\nCaptain Grip was game. \u201cGood enough!\u201d he shouted back. \u201cThe wind is\nfair, and we have all day. I am ready.\u201d\n\nThat was the council of war and its decision. Tordenskjold gave\nthe signal to clear for action, and sailed in at the head of his\nhandful of ships.\n\nThe inlet to the harbor of Dynekilen is narrow and crooked, winding\nbetween reefs and rocky steeps quite two miles, and only in\nspots more than four hundred feet wide. Half-way in was a strong\nbattery. Tordenskjold\u2019s fleet was received with a tremendous fire\nfrom all the Swedish ships, from the battery, and from an army of\nfour thousand soldiers lying along shore. The Danish ships made\nno reply. They sailed up grimly silent till they reached a place\nwide enough to let them wear round, broadside on. Then their guns\nspoke. Three hours the battle raged before the Swedish fire began\nto slacken. As soon as he noticed it, Tordenskjold slipped into the\ninner harbor under cover of the heavy pall of smoke, and before the\nSwedes suspected their presence they found his ships alongside.\nBroadside after broadside crashed into them, and in terror they\nfled, soldiers and sailors alike. While they ran Tordenskjold\nswooped down upon the half-way battery, seized it, and spiked its\nguns. The fight was won.\n\nBut the heaviest part was left\u2014the towing out of the captured\nships. All the afternoon Tordenskjold led the work in person,\npulling on ropes, cheering on his men. The Swedes, returning\ngamely to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore. One\nof the abandoned vessels caught fire. Lieutenant Toender, of\nTordenskjold\u2019s staff, a veteran with a wooden leg, boarded it just\nas the quartermaster ran up yelling that the ship was full of\npowder and was going to blow up. He tried to jump overboard, but\nthe lieutenant seized him by the collar and, stumping along, made\nhim lead the way to the magazine. A fuse had been laid to an open\nkeg of powder, and the fire was sputtering within an inch of it\nwhen Lieutenant T\u00f6nder plucked it out, smothered it between thumb\nand forefinger, and threw it through the nearest port-hole. There\nwere two hundred barrels of powder in the ship.\n\nTordenskjold had kept his word to the King. Not as much as a yawl\nof the Dynekilen fleet was left to the enemy. He had sunk or\nburned thirteen and captured thirty-one ships with his seven, and\nall the piled-up munitions of war were in his hands. King Charles\ngave up the siege, marched his army out of Norway, and the country\nwas saved. The victory cost Tordenskjold but nineteen killed and\nfifty-seven wounded. On his own ship six men were killed and twenty\nwounded.\n\nOf infinite variety was this sea-fighter. After a victory like\nthis, one hears of him in the next breath gratifying a passing whim\nof the King, who wanted to know what the Swedish people thought of\ntheir Government after Charles\u2019s long wars that are said to have\ncost their country a million men. Tordenskjold overheard it, had\nhimself rowed across to Sweden, picked up there a wedding party,\nbridegroom, minister, guests, and all, including the captain of\nthe shore watch who was among them, and returned in time for the\npalace dinner with his catch. King Frederik was entertaining Czar\nPeter the Great, who had been boasting of the unhesitating loyalty\nof his men which his Danish host could not match. He now had the\ntables turned upon him. It is recorded that the King sent the party\nback with royal gifts for the bride. One would be glad to add that\nTordenskjold sent back, too, the silver pitcher and the parlor\nclock his men took on their visit. But he didn\u2019t. They were still\nin Copenhagen a hundred years later, and may be they are yet. It\nwas not like his usual gallantry toward the fair sex. But perhaps\nhe didn\u2019t know anything about it.\n\nThen we find him, after an unsuccessful attack on G\u00f6teborg that\ncost many lives, sending in his adjutant to congratulate the\nSwedish commandant on their \u201cgallant encounter\u201d the day before,\nand exchanging presents with him in token of mutual regard. And\nbefore one can turn the page he is discovered swooping down upon\nMarstrand, taking town and fleet anchored there, and the castle\nitself with its whole garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled\nby stratagem into an army of thousands. We are told that an officer\nsent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous\ndinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street,\nalways two hundred men around every corner, as he made his way\nthrough the town, piloted by Tordenskjold himself, who was careful\nto take him the longest way, while the men took the short cut to\nthe next block. The man returned home with the message that the\ntown was full of them and that resistance was useless. The ruse\nsmacks of Peder Wessel\u2019s boyish fight with a much bigger fellow who\nhad beaten him once by gripping his long hair, and so getting his\nhead in chancery. But Peder had taken notice. Next time he came to\nthe encounter with hair cut short and his whole head smeared with\nsoft-soap, and that time he won.\n\nThe most extraordinary of all his adventures befell when, after the\nattack on Str\u00f6mstad, he was hastening home to Copenhagen. Crossing\nthe Kattegat in a little smack that carried but two three-pound\nguns, he was chased and overtaken by a Swedish frigate of sixteen\nguns and a crew of sixty men. Tordenskjold had but twenty-one,\nand eight of them were servants and non-combatants. They were\ndreadfully frightened, and tradition has it that one of them wept\nwhen he saw the Swede coming on. Her captain called upon him to\nsurrender, but the answer was flung back:\n\n\u201cI am Tordenskjold! Come and take me, if you can.\u201d\n\nWith that came a tiny broadside that did brisk execution on\nthe frigate. Tordenskjold had hauled both his guns over on the\n\u201cfighting side\u201d of his vessel. There ensued a battle such as Homer\nwould have loved to sing. Both sides banged away for all they were\nworth. In the midst of the din and smoke Tordenskjold used his\nmusket with cool skill; his servants loaded while he fired. At\nevery shot a man fell on the frigate.\n\nWord was brought that there was no more round shot. He bade them\ntwist up his pewter dinner service and fire that, which they did.\nThe Swede tried vainly to board. Tordenskjold man\u0153uvred his smack\nwith such skill that they could not hook on. Seeing this, Captain\nLind, commander of the frigate, called to him to desist from the\nuseless struggle; he would be honored to carry such a prisoner into\nG\u00f6teborg. Back came the taunt:\n\n\u201cNeither you nor any other Swede shall ever carry me there!\u201d And\nwith that he shot the captain down.[1]\n\nWhen his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off\nas quickly as they could, while Tordenskjold\u2019s crew, of whom only\nfourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic\ndefiance. Their captain was for following the Swede and boarding\nher, but he couldn\u2019t. Sails, rigging, and masts were shot to\npieces. Perhaps the terror of the Swedes was increased by the sight\nof Tordenskjold\u2019s tame bear making faces at them behind his master.\nIt went with him everywhere till that day, and came out of the\nfight unscathed. But during the night the crew ran the vessel on\nthe Swedish shore, whence Tordenskjold himself reached Denmark in\nan open boat which he had to keep bailing all night, for the boat\nwas shot full of holes, and though he and his companions stuffed\ntheir spare clothing into them it leaked badly. The enemy got the\nsmack, after all, and the bear, which, being a Norwegian, proved so\nuntractable on Swedish soil that, sad to relate, in the end they\ncut him up and ate him.\n\nKing Charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant\nenemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold\u2019s belongings sent\nback to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. He\nwas found dead in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December\n11, 1718, shot through the head. It was Tordenskjold himself who\nbrought the all-important news to King Frederik in the night\nof December 28,\u2014they were not the days of telegraphs and fast\nsteamers,\u2014and when the King, who had been roused out of bed to\nreceive him, could not trust his ears, he said with characteristic\naudacity, \u201cI wish it were as true that your Majesty had made me a\nschoutbynacht,\u201d\u2014the rank next below admiral. And so he took the\nstep next to the last on the ladder of his ambition.\n\nWithin seven months he took Marstrand. It is part of the record\nof that astonishing performance that when the unhappy Commandant\nhesitated as the hour of evacuation came, not sure that he had done\nright in capitulating, Tordenskjold walked up to the fort with a\nhundred men, half his force, banged on the gate, went in alone and\nup to the Commandant\u2019s window, thundering out:\n\n\u201cWhat are you waiting for? Don\u2019t you know time is up?\u201d\n\nIn terror and haste, Colonel Dankwardt moved his Hessians out, and\nTordenskjold marched his handful of men in. When he brought the\nKing the keys of Marstrand, Frederik made him an admiral.\n\nIt was while blockading the port of G\u00f6teborg in the last year of\nthe war that he met and made a friend of Lord Carteret, the English\nAmbassador to Denmark, and fell in love with the picture of a young\nEnglishwoman, Miss Norris, a lady of great beauty and wealth,\nwho, Lord Carteret told him, was an ardent admirer of his. It was\nthis love which indirectly sent him to his death. Lord Carteret\nhad given him a picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he\nstarted for England; but he never reached that country. The remnant\nof the Swedish fleet lay in the roadstead at G\u00f6teborg, under the\nguns of the two forts, New and Old Elfsborg. While Tordenskjold was\naway at Marstrand, the enemy sallied forth and snapped up seven\nof the smaller vessels of his blockading fleet. The news made him\nfurious. He sent in, demanding them back at once, \u201cor I will come\nafter them.\u201d He had already made one ineffectual attempt to take\nNew Elfsborg that cost him dear. In G\u00f6teborg they knew the strength\nof his fleet and laughed at his threat. But it was never safe to\nlaugh at Tordenskjold. The first dark night he stole in with ten\narmed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort, and spiked\ntheir guns before a shot was fired. The rising moon saw his men\nin possession of the ships lying at anchor. With their blue-lined\ncoats turned inside out so that they might pass for Swedish\nuniforms, they surprised the watch in the guard-house and made them\nall prisoners. Now that there was no longer reason for caution,\nthey raised a racket that woke the sleeping town up in a fright.\nThe commander of the other fort sent out a boat to ascertain the\ncause. It met the Admiral\u2019s and challenged it, \u201cWho goes there?\u201d\n\n\u201cTordenskjold,\u201d was the reply, \u201ccome to teach you to keep awake.\u201d\n\nIt proved impossible to warp the ships out. Only one of the seven\nlost ones was recovered; all the rest were set on fire. By the\nlight of the mighty bonfire Tordenskjold rowed out with his men,\nhauling the recovered ship right under the guns of the forts, the\nDanish flag flying at the bow of his boat. He had not lost a single\nman. A cannon-ball swept away all the oars on one side of his boat,\nbut no one was hurt.\n\nAt Marstrand they had been up all night listening to the\ncannonading and the crash upon crash as the big ships blew up. They\nknew that Tordenskjold was abroad with his men. In the morning,\nwhen they were all in church, he walked in and sat down by his\nchief, the old Admiral Judicher, who was a slow-going, cautious\nman. He whispered anxiously, \u201cWhat news?\u201d but Tordenskjold only\nshrugged his shoulders with unmoved face. It is not likely that\neither the old Admiral or the congregation heard much of that\nsermon, if indeed they heard any of it. But when it was over, they\nsaw from the walls of the town the Danish ships at anchor and heard\nthe story of the last of Tordenskjold\u2019s exploits. It fitly capped\nthe climax of his life. Sweden\u2019s entire force on the North Sea,\nwith the exception of five small galleys, had either been captured,\nsunk, or burned by him.\n\nThe King would not let Tordenskjold go when peace was made, but he\nhad his way in the end. To his undoing he consented to take with\nhim abroad a young scalawag, the son of his landlord, who had more\nmoney than brains. In Hamburg the young man fell in with a gambler,\na Swedish colonel by name of Stahl, who fleeced him of all he had\nand much more besides. When Tordenskjold heard of it and met the\nColonel in another man\u2019s house, he caned him soundly and threw him\nout in the street. For this he was challenged, but refused to fight\na gambler.\n\n\u201cFriends,\u201d particularly one Colonel M\u00fcnnichhausen, who volunteered\nto be his second, talked him over, and also persuaded him to give\nup the pistol, with which he was an expert. The duel was fought at\nthe Village of Gledinge, over the line from Hanover, on the morning\nof November 12, 1720. Tordenskjold was roused from sleep at five,\nand, after saying his prayers, a duty he never on any account\nomitted, he started for the place appointed. His old body-servant\nvainly pleaded with his master to take his stout blade instead of\nthe flimsy parade sword the Admiral carried. M\u00fcnnichhausen advised\nagainst it; it would be too heavy, he said. Stahl\u2019s weapon was a\nlong fighting rapier, and to this the treacherous second made no\nobjection. Almost at the first thrust he ran the Admiral through.\nThe seconds held his servant while Stahl jumped on his horse and\ngalloped away. Tordenskjold breathed out his dauntless soul in the\narms of his faithful servant and friend.\n\nHis body lies in a black marble sarcophagus in the \u201cNavy Church\u201d\nat Copenhagen. The Danish and Norwegian peoples have never ceased\nto mourn their idol. He was a sailor with a sailor\u2019s faults. But\nhe loved truth, honor, and courage in foe and friend alike. Like\nmany seafaring men, he was deeply religious, with the unquestioning\nfaith of a child. There is a letter in existence written by him\nto his father when the latter was on his death-bed that bears\nwitness to this. He thanks him with filial affection for all his\ncare, and says na\u00efvely that he would rather have his prayers\nthan fall heir to twenty thousand daler. His pictures show a\nstocky, broad-shouldered youth with frank blue eyes, full lips,\nand an eagle nose. His deep, sonorous voice used to be heard, in\nhis midshipman days, above the whole congregation in the Navy\nChurch. In after years it called louder still to Denmark\u2019s foes.\nWhen things were at their worst in storm or battle, he was wont\nto shout to his men, \u201cHi, _now_ we are having a fine time!\u201d and\nhis battle-cry has passed into the language. By it, in desperate\nstraits demanding stout hearts, one may know the Dane after his own\nheart, the real Dane, the world over. Among his own Tordenskjold is\nstill and always will be \u201cthe Admiral of Norway\u2019s fleet.\u201d\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[1] He was not mortally wounded, and Tordenskjold took him prisoner\nlater at the capture of Marstrand.\n\n\n\n\nHANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE TO GREENLAND\n\n\nWhen in the fall of 1909 the statement was flashed around the\nworld that the North Pole had at last been reached, a name long\nunfamiliar ran from mouth to mouth with that of the man who claimed\nto be its discoverer. Dr. Cook was coming to Copenhagen, the daily\ndespatches read, on the Danish Government steamer _Hans Egede_. A\nshipload of reporters kept an anxious lookout from the Skaw for\nthe vessel so suddenly become famous, but few who through their\ntelescopes made out the name at last upon the prow of the ship\ngave it another thought in the eager welcome to the man it brought\nback from the perils of the Farthest North. Yet the name of that\nvessel stood for something of more real account to humanity than\nthe attainment of a goal that had been the mystery of the ages. No\nsuch welcome awaited the explorer Hans Egede, who a hundred and\nseventy-two years before sailed homeward over that very route,\na broken, saddened man, and all he brought was the ashes of his\nbest-beloved that they might rest in her native soil. No gold medal\nwas struck for him; the people did not greet him with loud acclaim.\nThe King and his court paid scant attention to him, and he was\nallowed to live his last days in poverty. Yet a greater honor is\nhis than ever fell to a discoverer: the simple natives of Greenland\nlong reckoned the time from his coming among them. To them he was\nin their ice-bound home what Father Damien was to the stricken\nlepers in the South seas, and Dr. Grenfell is to the fishermen of\nLabrador.\n\nHans Poulsen Egede, the apostle of Greenland, was a Norwegian of\nDanish descent. He was born in the Northlands, in the parish of\nTronden\u00e4s, on January 31, 1686. His grandfather and his father\nbefore him had been clergymen in Denmark, the former in the town of\nWest Egede, whence the name. Graduated in a single year from the\nUniversity of Copenhagen, \u201cat which,\u201d his teachers bore witness,\n\u201cno one need wonder who knows the man,\u201d he became at twenty-two\npastor of a parish up in the Lofoden Islands, where the fabled\nma\u00eblstrom churns. Eleven years he preached to the poor fisherfolk\non Sunday, and on week-days helped his parishioners rebuild the old\nchurch. When it was finished and the bishop came to consecrate it,\nhe chided Egede because the altar was too fine; it must have cost\nmore than they could afford.\n\n\u201cIt did not cost anything,\u201d was his reply. \u201cI made it myself.\u201d\n\nNo wonder his fame went far. When the church bell of Vaagen called,\nboats carrying Sunday-clad fishermen were seen making for the\nisland from every point of the compass. Great crowds flocked to\nhis church; great enough to arouse the jealousy of neighboring\npreachers who were not so popular, and they made it so unpleasant\nthat his wife at last tired of it. They little dreamed that they\nwere industriously paving the way for his greater work and for his\nundying fame.\n\nThe sea that surges against that rockbound coast ever called its\npeople out in quest of adventure. Some who went nine hundred years\nago found a land in the far Northwest barred by great icebergs; but\nonce inside the barrier, they saw deep fjords like their own at\nhome, to which the mountains sloped down, covered with a wealth of\nlovely flowers. On green meadows antlered deer were grazing, the\nsalmon leaped in brawling brooks, and birds called for their mates\nin the barrens. Above it all towered snow-covered peaks. They saw\nonly the summer day; they did not know how brief it was, and how\nlong the winter night, and they called the country Greenland. They\nbuilt their homes there, and other settlers came. They were hardy\nmen, bred in a harsh climate, and they stayed. They built churches\nand had their priests and bishops, for Norway was Christian by\nthat time. And they prospered after their fashion. They even paid\nPeter\u2019s Pence to Rome. There is a record that their contribution,\nbeing in kind, namely, walrus teeth, was sold in 1386 by the Pope\u2019s\nagent to a merchant in Flanders for twelve livres, fourteen sous.\nThey kept up communication with their kin across the seas until the\nBlack Death swept through the Old World in the Fourteenth Century;\nNorway, when it was gone, was like a vast tomb. Two-thirds of its\npeople lay dead. Those who were left had enough to do at home; and\nGreenland was forgotten.\n\nThe seasons passed, and the savages, with whom the colonists\nhad carried on a running feud, came out of the frozen North and\noverwhelmed them. Dim traditions that were whispered among the\nnatives for centuries told of that last fight. It was the Ragnarok\nof the Northmen. Not one was left to tell the tale. Long years\nafter, when fishing vessels landed on that desolate coast, they\nfound a strange and hostile people in possession. No one had ever\ndared to settle there since.\n\nThis last Egede knew, but little more. He believed that there were\nstill settlements on the inaccessible east coast of Greenland where\ndescendants of the old Northmen lived, cut off from all the world,\nsunk into ignorance and godlessness,\u2014men and women who had once\nknown the true light,\u2014and his heart yearned to go to their rescue.\nWaking and dreaming, he thought of nothing else. The lamp in his\nquiet study shone out over the sea at night when his people were\nlong asleep. Their pastor was poring over old manuscripts and the\nlogs of whalers that had touched upon Greenland. From Bergen he\ngathered the testimony of many sailors. None of them had ever seen\ntraces of, or heard of, the old Northmen.\n\nTo his bishop went Egede with his burden. Ever it rang in his\nears: \u201cGod has chosen you to bring them back to the light.\u201d The\nbishop listened and was interested. Yes, that was the land from\nwhich seafarers in a former king\u2019s time had brought home golden\nsand. There might be more. It couldn\u2019t be far from Cuba and\nHispaniola, those golden coasts. If one were to go equipped for\ntrading, no doubt a fine stroke of business might be done. Thus\nthe Right Reverend Bishop Krog of Trondhjem, and Egede went home,\ndisheartened.\n\nAt home his friends scouted him, said he was going mad to think\nof giving up his living on such a fool\u2019s chase. His wife implored\nhim to stay, and with a heavy heart Egede was about to abandon\nhis purpose when his jealous neighbor, whose parishioners had\nbeen going to hear Egede preach, stirred up such trouble that his\nwife was glad to go. She even urged him to, and he took her at\nher word. They moved to Bergen, and from that port they sailed on\nMay 3, 1721, on the ship _Haabet_ (the Hope), with another and\nsmaller vessel as convoy, forty-six souls all told, bound for the\nunknown North. The Danish King had made Egede missionary to the\nGreenlanders on a salary of three hundred daler a year, the same\namount which Egede himself contributed of his scant store toward\nthe equipment. The bishop\u2019s plan had prevailed; the mission was to\nbe carried by the expected commerce, and upon that was to be built\na permanent colonization.\n\nEarly in June they sighted land, but the way to it was barred\nby impassable ice. A whole month they sailed to and fro, trying\nvainly for a passage. At last they found an opening and slipped\nthrough, only to find themselves shut in, with towering icebergs\nclosing around them. As they looked fearfully out over the rail,\ntheir convoy signalled that she had struck, and the captain of\n_Haabet_ cried out that all was lost. In the tumult of terror that\nsucceeded, Egede alone remained calm. Praying for succor where\nthere seemed to be none, he remembered the One Hundred and Seventh\nPsalm: \u201cHe brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,\nand brake their bands in sunder.\u201d And the morning dawned clear,\nthe ice was moving and their prison widening. On July 3, _Haabet_\ncleared the last ice-reef, and the shore lay open before them.\n\nThe Eskimos came out in their kayaks, and the boldest climbed\naboard the ship. In one boat sat an old man who refused the\ninvitation. He paddled about the vessel, mumbling darkly in a\nstrange tongue. He was an Angekok, one of the native medicine-men\nof whom presently Egede was to know much more. As he stood upon\nthe deck and looked at these strangers for whose salvation he had\nrisked all, his heart fell. They were not the stalwart Northmen he\nhad looked for, and their jargon had no homelike sound. But a great\nwave of pity swept over him, and the prayer that rose to his lips\nwas for strength to be their friend and their guide to the light.\n\nNot at once did the way open for the coveted friendship with the\nEskimos. While they thought the strangers came only to trade they\nwere hospitable enough, but when they saw them build, clearly\nintent on staying, they made signs that they had better go. They\npointed to the sun that sank lower toward the horizon every day,\nand shivered as if from extreme cold, and they showed their\nvisitors the icebergs and the snow, making them understand that\nit would cover the house by and by. When it all availed nothing\nand the winter came on, they retired into their huts and cut the\nacquaintance of the white men. They were afraid that they had come\nto take revenge for the harm done their people in the olden time.\nThere was nothing for it, then, but that Egede must go to them, and\nthis he did.\n\nThey seized their spears when they saw him coming, but he made\nsigns that he was their friend. When he had nothing else to give\nthem, he let them cut the buttons from his coat. Throughout the\nfifteen years he spent in Greenland Egede never wore furs, as\ndid the natives. The black robe he thought more seemly for a\nclergyman, to his great discomfort. He tells in his diary and in\nhis letters that often when he returned from his winter travels it\ncould stand alone when he took it off, being frozen stiff. After\na while he got upon neighborly terms with the Eskimos; but, if\nanything, the discomfort was greater. They housed him at night in\ntheir huts, where the filth and the stench were unendurable. They\nshowed their special regard by first licking off the piece of seal\nthey put before him, and if he rejected it they were hurt. Their\nhousekeeping, of which he got an inside view, was embarrassing in\nits simplicity. The dish-washing was done by the dogs licking the\nkettles clean. Often, after a night or two in a hut that held half\na dozen families, he was compelled to change his clothes to the\nskin in an open boat or out on the snow. But the alternative was to\nsleep out in a cold that sometimes froze his pillow to the bed and\nthe tea-cup to the table even in his own home. Above all, he must\nlearn their language.\n\nIt proved a difficult task, for the Eskimo tongue was both very\nsimple and very complex. In all the things pertaining to their\ndaily life it was exceedingly complex. For instance, to catch one\nkind of fish was expressed by one word, to catch another kind in\nquite different terms. They had one word for catching a young seal,\nanother for catching an old one. When it came to matters of moral\nand spiritual import, the language was poor to desperation. Egede\u2019s\ninstruction began when he caught the word \u201ckine\u201d\u2014what is it? And\nfrom that time on he learned every day; but the pronunciation was\nas varied as the workaday vocabulary, and it was an unending task.\n\nIt proceeded with many interruptions from the Angekoks, who\ntried more than once to bewitch him, but finally gave it up,\nconvinced that he was a great medicine-man himself, and therefore\ninvulnerable. But before that they tried to foment a regular\nmutiny, the colony being by that time well under way, and Egede\nhad to arrest and punish the leaders. The natives naturally clung\nto them, and when Egede had mastered their language and tried to\nmake clear that the Angekoks deceived them when they pretended to\ngo to the other world for advice, they demurred. \u201cDid you ever see\nthem go?\u201d he asked. \u201cWell, have you seen this God of yours of whom\nyou speak so much?\u201d was their reply. When Egede spoke of spiritual\ngifts, they asked for good health and blubber: \u201cOur Angekoks give\nus that.\u201d Hell-fire was much in theological evidence in those\ndays, but among the Eskimos it was a failure as a deterrent. They\nlistened to the account of it eagerly and liked the prospect. When\nat length they became convinced that Egede knew more than their\nAngekoks, they came to him with the request that he would abolish\nwinter. Very likely they thought that one who had such knowledge of\nthe hot place ought to have influence enough with the keeper of it\nto obtain this favor.\n\nIt was not an easy task, from any point of view, to which he had\nput his hands. As that first winter wore away there were gloomy\ndays and nights, and they were not brightened when, with the return\nof the sun, no ship arrived from Denmark. The Dutch traders came,\nand opened their eyes wide when they found Egede and his household\nsafe and even on friendly terms with the Eskimos. Pelesse\u2014the\nnatives called the missionary that, as the nearest they could\ncome to the Danish _pr\u00e4st_ (priest)\u2014Pelesse was not there after\nblubber, they told the Dutchmen, but to teach them about heaven\nand of \u201cHim up there,\u201d who had made them and wanted them home with\nHim again. So he had not worked altogether in vain. But the brief\nsummer passed, and still no relief ship. The crew of _Haabet_\nclamored to go home, and Egede had at last to give a reluctant\npromise that if no ship came in two weeks, he would break up. His\nwife alone refused to take a hand in packing. The ship was coming,\nshe insisted, and at the last moment it did come. A boat arriving\nafter dark brought the first word of it. The people ashore heard\nvoices speaking in Danish, and flew to Egede, who had gone to bed,\nwith the news. The ship brought good cheer. The Government was well\ndisposed. Trading and preaching were to go on together, as planned.\nJoyfully then they built a bigger and a better house, and called\ntheir colony Godthaab (Good Hope).\n\nThe work was now fairly under way. Of the energy and the hardships\nit entailed, even we in our day that have heard so much of Arctic\nexploration can have but a faint conception. Shut in on the coast\nof eternal ice and silence,\u2014silence, save when in summer the\nArctic rivers were alive, and crash after crash announced that the\nglaciers coming down from the inland mountains were \u201ccasting their\ncalves,\u201d the great icebergs, upon the ocean,\u2014the colonists counted\nthe days from the one when that year\u2019s ship was lost to sight till\nthe returning spring brought the next one, their only communication\nwith their far-off home. In summer the days were sometimes burning\nhot, but the nights always bitterly cold. In winter, says Egede,\nhot water spilled on the table froze as it ran, and the meat they\ncooked was often frozen at the bone when set on the table. Summer\nand winter Egede was on his travels between Sundays, sometimes in\nthe trader\u2019s boat, more often the only white man with one or two\nEskimo companions, seeking out the people. When night surprised\nhim with no native hut in sight, he pulled the boat on some desert\nshore and, commending his soul to God, slept under it. Once he and\nhis son found an empty hut, and slept there in the darkness. Not\nuntil day came again did they know that they had made their bed on\nthe frozen bodies of dead men who had once been the occupants of\nthe house, and had died they never knew how. Peril was everywhere.\nAgain and again his little craft was wrecked. Once the house blew\ndown over their heads in one of the dreadful winter storms that\nravage those high latitudes. Often he had to sit on the rail of his\nboat, and let his numbed feet hang into the sea to restore feeling\nin them. On land he sometimes waded waist-deep in snow, climbed\nmountains and slid down into valleys, having but the haziest notion\nof where he would land. At home his brave wife sat alone, praying\nfor his safety and listening to every sound that might herald his\nreturn. Tremble and doubt they did, Egede owns, but they never\nflinched. Their work was before them, and neither thought of\nturning back.\n\nThe Eskimos soon came to know that Egede was their friend. When\nhis boat entered a fjord where they were fishing, and his rowers\nshouted out that the good priest had come who had news of God, they\ndropped their work and flocked out to meet him. Then he spoke to\na floating congregation, simply as if they were children, and, as\nwith Him whose message he bore, \u201cthe people heard him gladly.\u201d They\ntook him to their sick, and asked him to breathe upon them, which\nhe did to humor them, until he found out that it was an Angekok\npractice, whereupon he refused. Once, after he had spoken of the\nraising of Lazarus from the dead, they took him to a new-made grave\nand asked him, too, to bring back their dead. They brought him a\nblind man to be healed. Egede looked upon them in sorrowful pity.\n\u201cI can do nothing,\u201d he said; \u201cbut if he believes in Jesus, He has\nthe power and can do it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do believe,\u201d shouted the blind man: \u201clet Him heal me.\u201d It\noccurred to Egede, perhaps as a mere effort at cleanliness, to wash\nhis eyes in cognac, and he sent him away with words of comfort. He\ndid not see his patient again for thirteen years. Then he was in a\ncrowd of Eskimos who came to Godthaab. The man saw as well as Egede.\n\n\u201cDo you remember?\u201d he said, \u201cyou washed my eyes with sharp water,\nand the Son of God in whom I believed, He made me to see.\u201d\n\nChildren the Eskimos were in their idolatry, and children they\nremained as Christians. By Egede\u2019s prayers they set great store.\n\u201cYou ask for us,\u201d they told him. \u201cGod does not hear us; He does\nnot understand Eskimo.\u201d Of God they spoke as \u201cHim up there.\u201d They\nbelieved that the souls of the dead went up on the rainbow, and,\nreaching the moon that night, rested there in the moon\u2019s house,\non a bench covered with the white skins of young polar bears.\nThere they danced and played games, and the northern lights were\nthe young people playing ball. Afterward they lived in houses on\nthe shore of a big lake overshadowed by a snow mountain. When the\nwaters ran over the edge of the lake, it rained on earth. When the\n\u201cmoon was dark,\u201d it was down on earth catching seal for a living.\nThunder was caused by two old women shaking a dried sealskin\nbetween them; the lightning came when they turned the white side\nout. The \u201cBig Nail\u201d we have heard of as the Eskimos\u2019 Pole, was a\nhigh-pointed mountain in the Farthest North on which the sky rested\nand turned around with the sun, moon, and stars. Up there the stars\nwere much bigger. Orion\u2019s Belt was so near that you had to carry a\nwhip to drive him away.\n\nThe women were slaves. An Eskimo might have as many wives as he\nsaw fit; they were his, and it was nobody\u2019s business. But adultery\nwas unknown. The seventh commandment in Egede\u2019s translation came\nto read, \u201cOne wife alone you shall have and love.\u201d The birth of\na girl was greeted with wailing. When grown, she was often wooed\nby violence. If she fled from her admirer, he cut her feet when\nhe overtook her, so that she could run no more. The old women\nwere denounced as witches who drove the seals away, and were\nmurdered. An Eskimo who was going on a reindeer hunt, and found\nhis aged mother a burden, took her away and laid her in an open\ngrave. Returning on the third day, he heard her groaning yet, and\nsmothered her with a big stone. He tried to justify himself to\nEgede by saying that \u201cshe died hard, and it was a pity not to speed\nher.\u201d Yet they buried a dog\u2019s head with a child, so that the dog,\nbeing clever, could run ahead and guide the little one\u2019s steps to\nheaven.\n\nThey could count no further than five; at a stretch they might\nget to twenty, on their fingers and toes, but there they stopped.\nHowever, they were not without resources. It was the day of long\nSunday services, and the Eskimos were a restless people. When the\nsermon dragged, they would go up to Egede and make him measure\non their arms how much longer the talk was going to be. Then\nthey tramped back to their seats and sat listening with great\nattention, all the time moving one hand down the arm, checking off\nthe preacher\u2019s progress. If they got to the finger-tips before he\nstopped, they would shake their heads sourly and go back for a\nremeasurement. No wonder Egede put his chief hope in the children,\nwhom he gathered about him in flocks.\n\nFor all that, the natives loved him. There came a day that brought\nthis message from the North: \u201cSay to the speaker to come to us to\nlive, for the other strangers who come here can only talk to us\nof blubber, blubber, blubber, and we also would hear of the great\nCreator.\u201d Egede went as far as he could, but was compelled by ice\nand storms to turn back after weeks of incredible hardships. The\ndisappointment was the more severe to him because he had never\nquite given up his hope of finding remnants of the ancient Norse\nsettlements. The fact that the old records spoke of a West Bygd\n(settlement) and an East Bygd had misled many into believing\nthat the desolate east coast had once been colonized. Not until\nour own day was this shown to be an error, when Danish explorers\nsearched that coast for a hundred miles and found no other trace\nof civilization than a beer bottle left behind by the explorer\nNordenskjold.\n\nEgede\u2019s hope had been that Greenland might be once more colonized\nby Christian people. When the Danish Government, after some years,\nsent up a handful of soldiers, with a major who took the title of\ngovernor, to give the settlement official character as a trading\nstation, they sent with them twenty unofficial \u201cChristians,\u201d ten\nmen out of the penitentiary and as many lewd and drunken women\nfrom the treadmill, who were married by lot before setting sail,\nto give the thing a half-way decent look. They were good enough\nfor the Eskimos, they seem to have thought at Copenhagen. There\nfollowed a terrible winter, during which mutiny and murder were\nthreatened. \u201cIt is a pity,\u201d writes the missionary, \u201cthat while we\nsleep secure among the heathen savages, with so-called Christian\npeople our lives are not safe.\u201d As a matter of fact they were not,\nfor the soldiers joined in the mutiny against Egede as the cause\nof their having to live in such a place, and had not sickness and\ndeath smitten the malcontents, neither he nor the governor would\nhave come safe through the winter. On the Eskimos this view of the\nsupposed fruits of Christian teaching made its own impression.\nAfter seeing a woman scourged on shipboard for misbehavior, they\ncame innocently enough to Egede and suggested that some of their\nbest Angekoks be sent down to Denmark to teach the people to be\nsober and decent.\n\nThere came a breathing spell after ten years of labor in what\nhad often enough seemed to him the spiritual as well as physical\nice-barrens of the North, when Egede surveyed a prosperous mission,\nwith trade established, a hundred and fifty children christened and\nschooled, and many of their elders asking to be baptized. In the\nmidst of his rejoicing the summer\u2019s ship brought word from Denmark\nthat the King was dead, and orders from his successor to abandon\nthe station. Egede might stay with provisions for one year, if\nthere was enough left over after fitting out the ship; but after\nthat he would receive no further help.\n\nWhen the Eskimos heard the news, they brought their little children\nto the mission. \u201cThese will not let you go,\u201d they said; and he\nstayed. His wife, whom hardship and privation and the lonely\nwaiting for her husband in the long winter nights had at last\nbroken down, refused to leave him, though she sadly needed the\ncare of a physician. A few of the sailors were persuaded to stay\nanother year. \u201cSo now,\u201d Egede wrote in his diary when, on July 31,\n1731, he had seen the ship sail away with all his hopes, \u201cI am\nleft alone with my wife and three children, ten sailors and eight\nEskimos, girls and boys who have been with us from the start. God\nlet me live to see the blessed day that brings good news once more\nfrom home.\u201d His prayer was heard. The next summer brought word that\nthe mission was to be continued, partly because Egede had strained\nevery nerve to send home much blubber and many skins. But it was as\na glimpse of the sun from behind dark clouds. His greatest trials\ntrod hard upon the good news.\n\nTo rouse interest in the mission Egede had sent home young Eskimos\nfrom time to time. Three of these died of smallpox in Denmark. The\nfourth came home and brought the contagion, all unknown, to his\npeople. It was the summer fishing season, when the natives travel\nmuch and far, and wherever he went they flocked about him to hear\nof the \u201cGreat Lord\u2019s land,\u201d where the houses were so tall that\none could not shoot an arrow over them, and to ask a multitude of\nquestions: Was the King very big? Had he caught many whales? Was\nhe strong and a great Angekok? and much more of the same kind. In\na week the disease broke out among the children at the mission,\nand soon word came from islands and fjords where the Eskimos were\nfishing, of death and misery unspeakable. It was virgin soil for\nthe plague, and it was terribly virulent, striking down young\nand old in every tent and hut. More than two thousand natives,\none-fourth of the whole population, died that summer. Of two\nhundred families near the mission only thirty were left alive. A\ncry of terror and anguish rose throughout the settlements. No one\nknew what to do. In vain did Egede implore them to keep their sick\napart. In fever delirium they ran out in the ice-fields or threw\nthemselves into the sea. A wild panic seized the survivors, and\nthey fled to the farthest tribes, carrying the seeds of death with\nthem wherever they went. Whole villages perished, and their dead lay\nunburied. Utter desolation settled like a pall over the unhappy land.\n\nThrough it all a single ray of hope shone. The faith that Egede\nhad preached all those years, and the life he had lived with them,\nbore their fruit. They had struck deeper than he thought. They\ncrowded to him, all that could, as their one friend. Dying mothers\nheld their suckling babes up to him and died content. In a deserted\nisland camp a half-grown girl was found alone with three little\nchildren. Their father was dead. When he knew that for him and the\nbaby there was no help, he went to a cave and, covering himself and\nthe child with skins, lay down to die. His parting words to his\ndaughter were, \u201cBefore you have eaten the two seals and the fish I\nhave laid away for you, Pelesse will come, no doubt, and take you\nhome. For he loves you and will take care of you.\u201d At the mission\nevery nook and cranny was filled with the sick and the dying. Egede\nand his wife nursed them day and night. Childlike, when death\napproached, they tried to put on their best clothes, or even to\nhave new ones made, that they might please God by coming into His\npresence looking fine. When Egede had closed their eyes, he carried\nthe dead in his arms to the vestibule, where in the morning the men\nwho dug the graves found them. At the sight of his suffering the\nscoffers were dumb. What his preaching had not done to win them\nover, his sorrows did. They were at last one.\n\nThat dreadful year left Egede a broken man. In his dark moments\nhe reproached himself with having brought only misery to those he\nhad come to help and serve. One thorn which one would think he\nmight have been spared rankled deep in it all. Some missionaries\nof a dissenting sect\u2014Egede was Lutheran\u2014had come with the smallpox\nship to set up an establishment of their own. At their head was\na man full of misdirected zeal and quite devoid of common-sense,\nwho engaged Egede in a wordy dispute about justification by faith\nand condemned him and his work unsparingly. He had grave doubts\nwhether he was in truth a \u201cconverted man.\u201d It came to an end when\nthey themselves fell ill, and Egede and his wife had the last word,\nafter their own fashion. They nursed the warlike brethren through\ntheir illness with loving ministrations and gave them back to life,\nlet us hope, wiser and better men.\n\nAt Christmas, 1735, Egede\u2019s faithful wife, Gertrude, closed her\neyes. She had gone out with him from home and kin to a hard and\nheathen land, and she had been his loyal helpmeet in all his\ntrials. Now it was all over. That winter scurvy laid him upon a bed\nof pain and, lying there, his heart turned to the old home. His\nson had come from Copenhagen to help, happily yet while his mother\nlived. To him he would give over the work. In Denmark he could do\nmore for it than in Greenland, now he was alone. On July 29, 1736,\nhe preached for the last time to his people and baptized a little\nEskimo to whom they gave his name, Hans. The following week he\nsailed for home, carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved\ndead and his motherless children.\n\nThe Eskimos gathered on the shore and wept as the ship bore their\nfriend away. They never saw him again. He lived in Denmark eighteen\nyears, training young men to teach the Eskimos. They gave him the\ntitle of bishop, but so little to live on that he was forced in\nhis last days to move from Copenhagen to a country town, to make\nboth ends meet. His grave was forgotten by the generation that came\nafter him. No one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt Greenland,\nwhere the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives\ntheir message from the souls that have gone home, his memory will\nlive when that of the North Pole seeker whom the world applauds is\nlong forgotten. Hans Egede was their great man, their hero. He was\nmore,\u2014he was their friend.\n\n\n\n\nGUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN\n\n\nA great and wise woman had, after ages of war and bloodshed, united\nthe crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms upon one head. In the\nstrong city of Kalmar, around which the tide of battle had ever\nraged hottest, the union was declared in the closing days of the\nThirteenth Century. Norwegian, Swede, and Dane were thenceforth\nto stand together, to the end of time; so they resolved. It was\nall a vain dream. Queen Margaret was not cold in her grave before\nthe kingdoms fell apart. Norway clung to Denmark, but Sweden went\nher own way. In the wars of two generations the Danish kings won\nback the Swedish crown and lost it, again and again, until in 1520\nKing Christian II clutched it for the last time, at the head of a\nconquering army. He celebrated his victory with a general amnesty,\nand bade the Swedish nobles to a great feast, held at the capital\nin November.\n\nChristian is one of the unsolved riddles of history. Ablest but\nunhappiest of all his house, he was an instinctive democrat,\nsincerely solicitous for the welfare of the plain people, but\nincredibly cruel and faithless when the dark mood seized him.\nThe coronation feast ended with the wholesale butchery of the\nunsuspecting nobles. Hundreds were beheaded in the public square;\nfor days it was filled with the slain. It is small comfort that\nthe wicked priest who egged the King on to the dreadful deed was\nhimself burned at the stake by the master he had betrayed. The\nStockholm Massacre drowned the Kalmar Union in its torrents of\nblood. Retribution came swiftly. Above the peal of the Christmas\nbells rose the clash and clangor of armed hosts pouring forth from\nthe mountain fastnesses to avenge the foul treachery. They were led\nby Gustav[2] Eriksson Vasa, a young noble upon whose head Christian\nhad set a price.\n\nThe Vasas were among the oldest and best of the great Swedish\nfamilies. It was said of them that they ever loved a friend,\nhated a foe, and never forgot. Gustav was born in the castle of\nLindholmen, when the news that the world had grown suddenly big by\nthe discovery of lands beyond the unknown seas was still ringing\nthrough Europe, on May 12, 1496. He was brought up in the home\nof his kinsman, the Swedish patriot Sten Sture, and early showed\nthe fruits of his training. \u201cSee what I will do,\u201d he boasted in\nschool when he was thirteen, \u201cI will go to Dalecarlia, rouse the\npeople, and give the Jutes (Danes) a black eye.\u201d Master Ivar, his\nDanish teacher, gave him a whaling for that. White with anger,\nthe boy drove his dirk through the book, nailing it to the desk,\nand stalked out of the room. Master Ivar\u2019s eyes followed the slim\nfigure in the scarlet cloak, and he sighed wearily \u201c_nobilium nati\nnolunt aliquid pati_,\u2014the children of the great will put up with\nnothing.\u201d\n\nHardly yet of age, he served under the banner of Sten Sture against\nKing Christian, and was one of six hostages sent to the King when\nhe asked an interview of the Swedish leader. But Christian stayed\naway from the meeting and carried the hostages off to Denmark\nagainst his plighted faith. There Gustav was held prisoner a year.\nAll that winter rumors of great armaments against Sweden filled the\nland. He heard the young bloods from the court prate about bending\nthe stiff necks in the country across the Sound, and watched them\nthrow dice for Swedish castles and Swedish women,\u2014part of the loot\nwhen his fatherland should be laid under the yoke. Ready to burst\nwith anger and grief, he sat silent at their boasts. In the spring\nhe escaped, disguised as a cattle-herder, and made his way to\nLuebeck, where he found refuge in the house of the wealthy merchant\nKort K\u00f6nig.\n\nThey soon heard in Denmark where he was, and the King sent letters\ndemanding his surrender; but the burghers of the Hanse town hated\nChristian with cause, and would not give him up. Then came Gustav\u2019s\nwarder who had gone bail for him in sixteen hundred gulden, and\npleaded for his prisoner.\n\n\u201cI am not a prisoner,\u201d was Gustav\u2019s retort, \u201cI am a hostage, for\nwhom the Danish king pledged his oath and faith. If any one can\nprove that I was taken captive in a fight or for just cause, let\nhim stand forth. Ambushed was I, and betrayed.\u201d The L\u00fcbeck men\nthought of the plots King Christian was forever hatching against\nthem. Now, if he succeeded in getting Sweden under his heel, their\nturn would come next. Better, they said, send this Gustav home to\nhis own country, perchance he might keep the King busy there; by\nwhich they showed their good sense. His ex-keeper was packed off\nback home, and Gustav reached Sweden, sole passenger on a little\ncoast-trader, on May 31, 1520. A stone marks the spot where he\nlanded, near Kalmar; for then struck the hour of Sweden\u2019s freedom.\n\nBut not yet for many weary months did the people hear its summons.\nSwedish manhood was at its lowest ebb. Stockholm was held by the\nwidow of Sten Sture with a half-famished garrison. In Kalmar\nanother woman, Anna Bjelke, commanded, but her men murmured, and\nthe fall of the fortress was imminent. When Gustav Vasa, who had\nslipped in unseen, exhorted them to stand fast, they would have\nmobbed him. He left as he had come, the day before the surrender.\nTravelling by night, he made his way inland, finding everywhere\nfear and distrust. The King had promised that if they would obey\nhim \u201cthey should never want for herring and salt,\u201d so they told\nGustav, and when he tried to put heart into them and rouse their\npatriotism, they took up bows and arrows and bade him be gone.\nIndeed, there were not wanting those who shot at him. Like a hunted\ndeer he fled from hamlet to hamlet. Such friends as he had left\nadvised him to throw himself upon the King\u2019s mercy; told him of the\namnesty proclaimed. But Gustav\u2019s thoughts dwelt grimly among the\nNorthern mountaineers whom as a boy he had bragged he would set\nagainst the tyrant. Insensibly he shaped his course toward their\ncountry.\n\nHe was with his brother-in-law, Joachim Brahe, when the King\u2019s\nmessage bidding him to the coronation came. Gustav begged him not\nto go, but Brahe\u2019s wife and children were within Christian\u2019s reach,\nand he did not dare stay away. When he left, the fugitive hid in\nhis ancestral home at R\u00e4fsn\u00e4s on lake M\u00e4lar. There one of Brahe\u2019s\nmen brought him news of the massacre in which his master and\nGustav\u2019s father had perished. His mother, grandmother, and sisters\nwere dragged away to perish in Danish dungeons. On Gustav\u2019s head\nthe King had set a price, and spies were even then on his track.\n\nGustav\u2019s mind was made up. What was there now to wait for? Clad as\na peasant, he started for Dalecarlia with a single servant to keep\nhim company, but before he reached the mines the man stole all his\nmoney and ran away. He had to work now to live, and hired out to\nAnders Persson, the farmer of Rankhyttan. He had not been there\nmany days when one of the women saw an embroidered sleeve stick out\nunder his coat and told her master that the new hand was not what\nhe pretended to be. The farmer called him aside, and Gustav told\nhim frankly who he was. Anders Persson kept his secret, but advised\nhim not to stay long in any one place lest his enemies get wind of\nhim. He slipped away as soon as it was dark, nearly lost his life\nby breaking through the ice, but reached Orn\u00e4s on the other side of\nLake Runn, half dead with cold and exposure. He knew that another\nPersson who had been with him in the war lived there, and found\nhis house. Arendt Persson was a rascal. He received him kindly,\nbut when he slept harnessed his horse and went to M\u00e5ns Nilsson, a\nneighbor, with the news: the King\u2019s reward would make them both\nrich, if he would help him seize the outlawed man.\n\nM\u00e5ns Nilsson held with the Danes, but he was no traitor, and he\nshowed the fellow the door. He went next to the King\u2019s sheriff;\nhe would be bound to help. To be sure, he would claim the lion\u2019s\nshare of the blood-money, but something was better than nothing.\nThe sheriff came soon enough with a score of armed men. But Arendt\nPersson had not reckoned with his honest wife. She guessed his\nerrand and let Gustav down from the window to the rear gate, where\nshe had a sleigh and team in waiting. When the sheriff\u2019s posse\nsurrounded the house, Gustav was well on his way to Master Jon, the\nparson of Sv\u00e4rdsj\u00f6, who was his friend. Tradition has it that while\nChristian was King, the brave little woman never dared show her\nface in the house again.\n\nMaster Jon was all right, but news of the man-hunt had run through\nthe country, and when the parson\u2019s housekeeper one day saw him hold\nthe wash-bowl for his guest she wanted to know why he was so polite\nto a common clod. Master Jon told her that it was none of her\nbusiness, but that night he piloted his friend across the lake to\nIsala, where Sven Elfsson lived, a gamekeeper who knew the country\nand could be trusted. The good parson was hardly out of sight on\nhis way back when the sheriff\u2019s men came looking for Gustav. It\ndid not occur to them that the yokel who stood warming himself by\nthe stove might be the man they were after. But the gamekeeper\u2019s\nwife was quick to see his peril. She was baking bread and had just\nput the loaves into the oven with a long-handled spade. \u201cHere, you\nlummox!\u201d she cried, and whacked him soundly over the back with\nit, \u201cwhat are ye standing there gaping at? Did ye never see folks\nafore? Get back to your work in the barn.\u201d And Gustav, taking the\nhint, slunk out of the room.\n\nFor three days after that he lay hidden under a fallen tree in\nthe snow and bitter cold; but even there he was not safe, and the\ngamekeeper took him deeper into the forest, where a big spruce grew\non a hill in the middle of a frozen swamp. There no one would seek\nhim till he could make a shift to get him out of the country. The\nhill is still there; the people call it the King\u2019s Hill, and not\nafter King Christian, either. But in those long nights when Gustav\nVasa listened to the hungry wolves howling in the woods and nosing\nabout his retreat, it was hardly kingly conceits his mind brooded\nover. His father and kinsmen were murdered; his mother and sister\nin the pitiless grasp of the tyrant who was hunting him to his\ndeath; he, the last of his race, alone and forsaken by his own.\nBitter sorrow filled his soul at the plight of his country that had\nfallen so low. But the hope of the young years came to the rescue:\nall was not lost yet. And in the morning came Sven, the gamekeeper,\nwith a load of straw, at the bottom of which he hid him. So no one\nwould be the wiser.\n\nIt was well he did it, for half-way to the next town some prowling\nsoldiers overtook them, and just to make sure that there was\nnothing in the straw, prodded the load with their spears. Nothing\nstirred, and they went on their way. But a spear had gashed\nGustav\u2019s leg, and presently blood began to drip in the snow. Sven\nhad his wits about him. He got down, and cut the fetlock of one of\nthe beasts with his jack-knife so that it bled and no one need ask\nquestions. When they got to Marn\u00e4s, Gustav was weak from the loss\nof blood, but a friendly surgeon was found to bind up his wounds.\n\nFarther and farther north he fled, keeping to the deep woods in the\nday, until he reached R\u00e4ttwik. Feeling safer there, he spoke to the\npeople coming from church one Sunday and implored them to shake off\nthe Danish yoke. But they only shook their heads. He was a stranger\namong them, and they would talk it over with their neighbors. Not\nyet were his wanderings over. To Mora he went next, where Parson\nJakob hid him in a lonely farm-house. Evil chance led the spies\ndirect to his hiding-place, and once more it was the housewife\nwhose quick wit saved him. Dame Margit was brewing the Yule beer\nwhen she saw them coming. In a trice she had Gustav in the cellar\nand rolled the brewing vat over the trap-door. Then they might\nsearch as they saw fit; there was nothing there. The first blood\nwas spilled for Gustav Vasa while he was at Mora, and it was a\nDane who did it. He was the kind that liked to see fair play; when\nan under-sheriff came looking for the hunted man there, the Dane\nwaylaid and killed him.\n\nChristmas morning, when Master Jakob had preached his sermon in the\nchurch, Gustav spoke to the congregation out in the snow-covered\nchurchyard. A gravestone was his pulpit. Eloquent always, his\nsorrows and wrongs and the memory of the hard months lent wings to\nhis words. His speech lives yet in Dalecarlia, for now he was among\nits mountains.\n\n\u201cIt is good to see this great meeting,\u201d he said, \u201cbut when I think\nof our fatherland I am filled with grief. At what peril I am here\nwith you, you know who see me hounded as a wild beast day by day,\nhour by hour. But our beloved country is more to me than life. How\nlong must we be thralls, we who were born to freedom? Those of you\nwho are old remember what persecution Swedish men and women have\nsuffered from the Danish kings. The young have heard the story of\nit and have learned from they were little children to hate and\nresist such rule. These tyrants have laid waste our land and sucked\nits marrow, until nothing remains for us but empty houses and lean\nfields. Our very lives are not safe.\u201d He called upon them to rise\nand drive the invaders out. If they wanted a leader, he was ready.\n\nHis words stirred the mountaineers deeply. Cries of anger were\nheard in the crowd; it was not the first time they had taken up\narms in the cause of freedom. But when they talked it over, the\nolder heads prevailed; there had not been time enough to hear both\nsides. They told him that they would not desert the King; he must\nexpect nothing of them.\n\nBroken-hearted and desperate, Gustav Vasa turned toward the\nNorwegian frontier. He would leave the country for which there was\nno hope. While the table in the poorest home groaned with Yuletide\ncheer, Sweden\u2019s coming king hid under an old bridge, outcast and\nstarving, till it was safe to leave. Then he took up his weary\njourney alone. The winter cold had grown harder as the days grew\nshorter. Famished wolves dogged his steps, but he outran them on\nhis snow-shoes. By night he slept in some wayside shelter, such\nas they build for travellers in that desolate country, or in the\nbrush. The snow grew deeper, and the landscape wilder, as he went.\nFor days he had gone without food, when he saw the sun set behind\nthe lofty range that was to bar him out of home and hope forever.\nEven there was no abiding place for him. What thoughts of his\nvanished dream, perchance of the distant lands across the seas\nwhere the tyrant\u2019s hand could not reach him, were in his mind, who\nknows, as he bent his strength to the last and hardest stage of his\njourney? He was almost there, when he heard shouts behind him and\nturned to sell his life dear. Two men on skis were calling to him.\nThey were unarmed, and he waited to let them come up.\n\nTheir story was soon told. They had come to call him back. After he\nleft, an old soldier whom they knew in Mora had come from the south\nand told them worse things than even Gustav knew. It was all true\nabout the Stockholm murder; worse, the King was having gallows set\nup in every county to hang all those on who said him nay; a heavy\ntax was laid upon the peasants, and whoever did not pay was to have\na hand or foot cut off; they could still follow the plow. And now\nthey had sent away the one man who could lead against the Danes,\nwith the forests full of outlawed men who would have enlisted\nunder him as soon as ever the cry was raised! While the men of\nDalecarlia were debating the news among themselves orders came from\nthe bailiff at Wester\u00e5s that the tax was to be paid forthwith. That\nnight runners were sent on the trail of Gustav to tell him to come\nback; they were ready.\n\nWhen he came, it was as if a mighty storm swept through the\nmountains. The people rose in a body. Every day whole parishes\nthrew off their allegiance to King Christian. Sunday after Sunday\nGustav spoke to the people at their meeting-houses, and they raised\ntheir spears and swore to follow him to death. Two months after\nthe murder in Stockholm an army of thousands that swelled like an\navalanche was marching south, and province after province joined\nin the rebellion. King Christian\u2019s host met them at Brunb\u00e4ck in\nApril. One of its leaders asked the country folk what kind of men\nthe Dalecarlians were, and when he was told that they drank water\nand ate bread made of bark, he cried out, \u201cSuch a people the devil\nhimself couldn\u2019t whip; let us get out.\u201d But his advice was not\ntaken and the Danish army was wiped out. Gustav halted long enough\nto drill his men and give them time to temper their arrows and\nspears, then he fell upon Wester\u00e5s and beat the Danes there. The\npeasant mob scattered too soon to loot the town, and the King\u2019s men\ncame back with a sudden rush. Only Gustav\u2019s valor and presence of\nmind saved the day that had been won once from being lost again.\n\nWhen it was seen that the Danes were not invincible, the whole\ncountry rose, took the scattered castles, and put their defenders\nto the sword. Gustav bore the rising on his shoulders from first\nto last. He was everywhere, ordering and leading. His fiery\neloquence won over the timorous; his irresistible advance swept\nevery obstacle aside. In May he took Upsala; by midsummer he was\nbesieging Stockholm itself. Most of the other cities were in his\nhands. The Hanse towns had found out what this Gustav could do\nat home. They sang his praise, but as for backing him with their\npurse, that was another matter. They refused to lend Gustav two\nsiege-guns when he lay before Stockholm, though he offered to\npledge a castle for each. He had no money. Happily his enemy,\nChristian, was even worse off. Neither pledges nor promises could\nget him the money he needed. His chief men were fighting among\nthemselves and made peace only to turn upon him. Within a year\nafter the Swedish people had chosen Gustav Vasa to be Regent at\nthe Diet of Vadstena, Christian went into exile and, when he tried\nto get his kingdom back, into prison, where he languished the rest\nof his life. He fully deserved his fate. Yet he meant well and had\ndone some good things in his day. Had he been able to rule himself,\nhe might have ruled others with better success. Schoolboys remember\nwith gratitude that he forbade teachers to \u201cspank their pupils\novermuch and without judgment, as was their wont.\u201d\n\nAt the Diet of Vadstena the people had offered Gustav the crown,\nbut he put it from him. Scarce eight months had passed since he hid\nunder the bridge, hunted and starving. When Stockholm had fallen\nafter a siege of two years and all Sweden was free, the people met\n(1523) and made him King, whether or no. He still objected, but\ngave in at last and was crowned.\n\nPopular favor is fickle. Hard times came that were not made easier\nby Gustav\u2019s determination to fill the royal coffers, and the very\nDalecarlians who had put him in the high seat rose against him and\nserved notice that if things did not mend they would have none of\nhim. Gustav made sure that they had no backing elsewhere, then went\nup and persuaded them to be good by cutting off the heads of their\nleaders, who both happened to be priests: one was even a bishop.\nHe had been taught in a school that always found an axe ready to\nhand. Let those who lament the savagery of modern warfare consider\nwhat happened then to a Danish fleet that tried to bring relief\nto hard-pressed Stockholm. It was beaten in a fight in which six\nhundred men were taken prisoners. They were all, say the accounts,\n\u201ctied hand and foot and flung overboard amid the beating of drums\nand blowing of trumpets to drown their cries.\u201d The clergy fared\nlittle better than the laymen in that age, but then it was their\nown fault. In plotting and scrapping they were abreast of the worst\nand took the consequences.\n\nThey were the days of the Reformation, and Gustav would not have\nbeen human had he failed to see a way out of his money troubles by\nconfiscating church property. He had pawned the country\u2019s trade to\nthe merchants of L\u00fcbeck and there was nothing else left. Naturally\nthe church opposed him. The King took the bull by the horns. He\ncalled a meeting and told the people that he was sick of it all. He\nhad encouraged the Reformation for their good; now, if they did not\nstand by him, they might choose between him and his enemies. The\noldest priest arose at that and said that the church\u2019s property was\nsacred. The King asked if the rest of them thought the same way.\nOnly one voice was raised, and to say yes.\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d said Gustav, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be your King any more. If it\ndoes not rain, you blame me; if the sun does not shine, you do the\nsame. It is always so. All of you want to be masters. After all my\ntrouble and labor for you, you would as lief see my head split with\nan axe, though none of you dare lay hold of the handle. Give me\nback what I have spent in your service and I will go away and never\ncome back.\u201d And go he did, to his castle, with half a dozen of his\nnearest friends.\n\nThey sat and looked at one another when he was gone, and then\npriests and nobles fell to arguing among themselves, all talking\nat once. The plain people, the burghers and the peasants, listened\nawhile, but when they got no farther, let them know that if\nthey couldn\u2019t settle it, they, the people, would, and in a way\nthat would give them little joy. The upshot of it all was that\nmessengers were sent to bring the King back. He made them go three\ntimes, and when he came at last, it was as absolute master. In the\nordering of the kingdom that was made there, he became the head of\nthe church as well as of the state. Gustav\u2019s pen was as sharp as\nhis tongue. When Hans Brask, the oldest prelate in the land, who\nhad stood stoutly by the old r\u00e9gime, left the country and refused\nto come back, he wrote to him: \u201cAs long as you might milk and shear\nyour sheep, you staid by them. When God spake and said you were to\nfeed them, not to shear and slaughter them, you ran away. Every\nhonest man can judge if you have done well.\u201d Hard words to a good\nold man; but there were plenty of others who deserved them. That\nwas the end of the hierarchy in Sweden.\n\nBut not of the unruly peasants who had tasted the joys of\nking-making. How kindly they took to the Reformation at the outset\none can judge from the demand of some of them that the King should\n\u201cburn or otherwise kill such as ate meat on Friday.\u201d They rose\nagain and again, and would listen only to the argument of force.\nWhen the L\u00fcbeckers pressed hard for the payment of old debts,\nand the treasury was empty as usual, King Gustav hit upon a new\nkind of revenue. He demanded of every church in the land that it\ngive up its biggest bell to the funds. It was the last straw.\nThe Dalecarlians rose against what they deemed sacrilege, under\nthe leadership of M\u00e5ns Nilsson and Anders Persson of Rankhyttan,\nthe very men who had befriended Gustav in his need, and the\ninsurrection spread. The \u201cWar of the Bells\u201d was settled with the\nsword, and the peasants gave in. But Gustav came of a stock that\n\u201cnever forgot.\u201d Two years later, when his hands were free at home,\nhe suddenly invaded Dalecarlia with a powerful army, determined to\n\u201cpull those weeds up by the roots.\u201d He summoned the peasants to\nThing, made a ring around them of armed men, and gave them their\nchoice:\n\n\u201cSubmit now for good and all,\u201d he said, \u201cor I will spoil the land\nso that cock shall not crow nor hound bark in it again forever!\u201d\n\nThe frightened peasants fell on their knees and begged for mercy.\nHe made them give up their leaders, including his former friends,\nand they were all put to the sword. After that there was peace in\nDalecarlia.\n\nGustav Vasa\u2019s long reign ended in 1560. Like his enemy, Christian\nII, he was a strange mixture of contradictions. He was brave in\nbattle, wise in council, pious, if not a saint, clean, and merciful\nwhen mercy fitted into his plans. His enemies called him a greedy,\nsuspicious despot. Greedy he was. More than eleven thousand farms\nwere confiscated by the crown during his reign, and he left four\nthousand farms and a great fortune to his children as his personal\nshare. But historians have called him \u201cthe great housekeeper\u201d who\nfound waste and loss and left an ordered household. He gave all\nfor Sweden, and all he had was at her call. It was share and share\nalike, in his view. Despotic he could be, too. _L\u2019\u00e9tat c\u2019est moi_\nmight have been said by him. But he did not exploit the state;\nhe built it. He fashioned Sweden out of a bunch of quarrelsome\nprovincial governments into a hereditary monarchy, as the best\nway\u2014indeed, the only way then\u2014of giving it strength and stability.\nHe was suspicious because everybody had betrayed him, or had tried\nto. With all that, his steady purpose was to raise and enlighten\nhis people and make them keep the peace, if he had to adopt the\nIrishman\u2019s plan of keeping it himself with an axe. He was the\nfather of a line of great warriors. Gustav Adolf was his grandson.\n\n[Illustration: GUSTAV VASA BIDDING HIS PEOPLE GOOD-BY]\n\nBent under the burden of years, he bade his people good-by at the\nDiet of Stockholm, a few weeks before his death. His old eloquence\nrings unimpaired in the farewell. He thanked God, who had chosen\nhim as His tool to set Sweden free from thralldom. Almost might\nhe liken himself to King David, whom God from a shepherd had made\nthe leader of his people. No such hope was in his heart when,\nforty years before, he hid in the woods from a bloodthirsty enemy.\nFor what he had done wrong as king, he asked the people\u2019s pardon;\nit was not done on purpose. He knew well that many thought him a\nhard ruler, but the time would come when they would gladly dig him\nup from his grave if they only could. And with that he went out,\nbowing deeply to the Diet, the tears streaming down his face.\n\nThey saw him no more; but on his tomb the Swedish people,\nforgetting all else, have written that he was the \u201cFather of his\nCountry.\u201d\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[2] The older spelling of this name is followed here in preference\nto the more modern Gustaf. Gustav Vasa himself wrote his name so.\n\n\n\n\nABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH\n\n\nA welcome change awaits the traveller who, having shaken off the\nchill of the German Dreadnaughts at Kiel, crosses the Baltic to\nthe Danish Islands\u2014a change from the dread portents of war to\nsmiling peace. There can be nothing more pastoral and restful than\nthe Seeland landscape as framed in a car window; yet he misses\nits chief charm whom its folk-lore escapes\u2014the countless legends\nthat cling to field and forest from days long gone. The guide-book\ngives scarce a hint of them; but turn from its page and they meet\nyou at every step, hail you from every homestead, every copse. Nor\nis their story always of peace. Here was Knud Lavard slain by his\nenvious kinsman for the crown, and a miraculous spring gushed forth\nwhere he fell. Of the church they built for the pilgrims who sought\nit from afar they will show you the site, but the spring dried\nup with the simple old faith. Yonder, under the roof of Ringsted\nchurch, lie Denmark\u2019s greatest dead. Not half an hour from the\nferry landing at Kors\u00f6r, your train labors past a hill crowned by a\nvenerable cross, Holy Anders\u2019 Hill. So saintly was that masterful\npriest that he was wont, when he prayed, to hang his hat and gloves\non a sunbeam as on a hook. And woe to the land if his cross be\ndisturbed, for then, the peasant will tell you, the cattle die of\nplague and the crops fail. A little further on, just beyond Sor\u00f6,\na village church rears twin towers above the wheat-field where the\nskylark soars and sings to its nesting mate. For seven hundred\nyears the story of that church and its builder has been told at\nDanish firesides, and the time will never come when it is forgotten.\n\nFjenneslev is the name of the village, and Asker Ryg[3] ruled\nthere in the Twelfth Century, when the king summoned his men to\nthe war. Bidding good-by to his wife, Sir Asker tells her to build\na new church while he is away, for the old, \u201cwith wall of clay,\nstraw-thatched and grim,\u201d is in ruins. And let it be worthy of the\nMaster:\n\n      \u201cThe roof let make of tiling red;\n      Of stone thou build the wall;\u201d\n\nand then he whispers in her ear:\n\n      \u201cHear thou, my Lady Inge,\n        Of women thou art the flower;\n      An\u2019 thou bearest to me a son so bold,\n        Set on the church a tower.\u201d\n\nShould the child be a girl, he tells her to build only a spire, for\n\u201cmodesty beseemeth a woman.\u201d Well for Sir Asker that he did not\nlive in our day of clamoring suffragists. He would have \u201cviews\u201d\nwithout doubt. But no such things troubled him while he battled\nin foreign lands all summer. It was autumn when he returned and\nsaw from afar the swell behind which lay Fjenneslev and home.\nImpatiently he spurred his horse to the brow of the hill, for no\nnews had come of Lady Inge those many months. The bard tells us\nwhat he saw there:\n\n      \u201cIt was the good Sir Asker Ryg;\n        Right merrily laughed he,\n      When from that green and swelling hill\n        Two towers did he see.\u201d\n\nTwo sons lay at the Lady Inge\u2019s breast, and all was well.\n\n      \u201cThe first one of the brothers two\n        They called him Esbern Snare.[4]\n      He grew as strong as a savage bear\n        And fleeter than any hare.\n\n      \u201cThe second him called they Absalon,\n        A bishop he at home.\n      He used his trusty Danish sword\n        As the Pope his staff at Rome.\u201d\n\nAbsalon and Esbern were not twins, as tradition has it. They were\nbetter than that. They became the great heroes of their day, and\nthe years have not dimmed their renown. And Absalon reached far\nbeyond the boundaries of little Denmark to every people that speaks\nthe English tongue. For it was he who, as archbishop of the North,\n\u201cstrictly and earnestly\u201d charged his friend and clerk Saxo to\ngather the Danish chronicles while yet it was time, because, says\nSaxo, in the preface of his monumental work, \u201che could no longer\nabide that his fatherland, which he always honored and magnified\nwith especial zeal, should be without a record of the great deeds\nof the fathers.\u201d And from the record Saxo wrote we have our Hamlet.\n\nIt was when they had grown great and famous that Sir Asker and his\nwife built the church in thanksgiving for their boys, not when they\nwere born, and the way that came to light was good and wholesome.\nThey were about to rebuild the church, on which there had been\nno towers at all since they crumbled in the middle ages, and had\ndecided to put on only one; for the sour critics, who are never\ncontent in writing a people\u2019s history unless they can divest it of\nall its flesh and make it sit in its bones, as it were, sneered\nat the tradition and called it an old woman\u2019s tale. But they did\nnot shout quite so loud when, in peeling off the whitewash of the\nReformation, the mason\u2019s hammer brought forth mural paintings that\ngrew and grew until there stood the whole story to read on the\nwall, with Sir Asker himself and the Lady Inge, clad in garments\nof the Twelfth Century, bringing to the Virgin the church with the\ntwin towers. So the folk-lore was not so far out after all, and the\nchurch was rebuilt with two towers, as it should be.\n\nUnder its eaves, whether of straw or tile, the two boys played\ntheir childish games, and before long there came to join in them\nanother of their own age, young Valdemar, whose father, the very\nKnud Lavard mentioned above, had been foully murdered a while\nbefore. It was a time, says Saxo, in which \u201che must be of stout\nheart and strong head who dared aspire to Denmark\u2019s crown. For\nin less than a hundred years more than sixteen of her kings and\ntheir kin were either slain without cause by their own subjects,\nor otherwise met a sudden death.\u201d Sir Asker and the murdered\nKnud had been foster brothers, and throughout the bloody years\nthat followed, he and his brothers, sons of the powerful Skjalm\nHvide,[5] espoused his cause in good and evil days, while they saw\nto it that no harm came to the young prince under their roof.\n\nThe three boys, as they grew up, were bred to the stern duties of\nfighting men, as was the custom of their class. Absalon, indeed,\nwas destined for the church; but in a country so recently won from\nthe old war gods, it was the church militant yet, and he wielded\nspear and sword with the best of them. When, at eighteen, they\nsent him to France to be taught, he did not for his theological\nstudies neglect the instruction of his boyhood. There he became\nthe disciple and friend of the Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, more\npowerful then than prince or Pope, and when the abbot preached the\nsecond great crusade, promising eternal salvation to those who\ntook up arms against the unbelievers, whether to wrest from them\nthe Holy Sepulchre or to plant the cross among the wild heathen\non the Baltic, his heart burned hot within him. It was a long way\nto the Holy Land, but with the Baltic robbers his people had a\ngrievous score to settle. Their yells had sounded in his boyish\nears as they ravished the shores of his fatherland, penetrating\nwith murder and pillage almost to his peaceful home. And so, while\nhe lent a diligent ear to the teachings of the church, earning the\nname of the \u201cmost learned clerk\u201d in the cloister of Ste. Genevi\u00e8ve\nin Paris, daily he laid the breviary aside and took up sword and\nlance, learning the arts of modern warfare with the graces of\nchivalry. In the old way of fighting, man to man, the men of the\nNorth had been the equals of any, if not their betters; but against\nthe new methods of warfare their prowess availed little. Absalon,\nthe monk, kept his body strong while soul and mind matured. When\nnothing more adventurous befell, he chopped down trees for the\ncloister hearths. But oftener the clash of arms echoed in the quiet\nhalls, or the peaceful brethren crossed themselves as they watched\nhim break an unruly horse in the cloister fen. Saxo tells us that\nhe swam easily in full armor, and in more than one campaign in\nlater years saved drowning comrades who were not so well taught.\n\nThe while he watched rising all about some of the finest churches\nin Christendom. It was the era of cathedral building in Europe.\nThe Romanesque style of architecture had reached its highest\ndevelopment in the very France where he spent his young manhood\u2019s\nyears, and the Gothic, with its stamp of massive strength, was\nbeginning to displace its gentler curve. Ten years of such an\nenvironment, in a land teeming with historic traditions, rounded\nout the man who set his face toward home, bent on redeeming his\npeople from the unjust reproach of being mere \u201cbarbarians of the\nNorth.\u201d\n\nIt was a stricken Denmark to which he came back. Three claimants\nwere fighting for the crown. The land was laid waste by sea-rovers,\nwho saw their chance to raid defenceless homes while the men able\nto bear arms were following the rival kings. The people had lost\nhope. Just when Absalon returned, peace was made between the\nclaimants. Knud, Svend, and Valdemar, his foster brother of old,\ndivided up the country between them. They swore a dear oath to keep\nthe pact, but for all that \u201cthe three kingdoms did not last three\ndays.\u201d The treacherous Svend waited only for a chance to murder\nboth his rivals, and it came quickly, when he and Valdemar were\nthe guests of Knud at Roskilde. They had eaten and drunk together\nand were gathered in the \u201cStorstue,\u201d the big room of the house,\nwhen Knud saw Svend whispering aside with his men. With a sudden\nforeboding of evil, he threw his arms about Valdemar\u2019s shoulders\nand kissed him. The young King, who was playing chess with one\nof his men, looked up in surprise and asked what it meant. Just\nthen Svend left the hall, and his henchmen fell upon the two with\ndrawn swords. Knud was cut down at once, his head cleft in twain.\nValdemar upset the table with the candles and, wrapping his cloak\nabout his arm to ward off the blows that showered upon him, knocked\nhis assailants right and left and escaped, badly wounded.\n\nAbsalon came into the room as Knud fell and, thinking it was\nValdemar, caught him in his arms and took his wounded head in his\nlap. Sitting there in utter sorrow and despair, heedless of the\ntumult that raged in the darkness around him, he felt the King\u2019s\ngarment and knew that the man who was breathing his last in his\narms was not his friend. He laid the lifeless body down gently and\nleft the hall. The murderers barred his way, but he brushed their\nswords and spears aside and strode forth unharmed. Valdemar had\nfound a horse and made for Fjenneslev, twenty miles away, with all\nspeed, and there Absalon met him and his brother Esbern in the\nmorning.\n\nKing Svend sought him high and low to finish his dastardly work,\nwhile on Thing he wailed loudly before the people that Valdemar\nand Knud had tried to kill him, showing in proof of it his cloak,\nwhich he had rent with his own sword. But Valdemar\u2019s friends were\nwide awake. Esbern flew through the island on his fleet horse\nin Valdemar\u2019s clothes, leading his pursuers a merry dance, and\nwhen the young King\u2019s wound was healed, he found him a boat and\nferried him across to the mainland, where the people flocked to\nhis standard. When Svend would have followed, it was the Lady Inge\nwho scuttled his ship by night and gave her foster son the start\nhe needed. There followed a short and sharp struggle that ended on\nGrathe Heath with the utter rout of Svend\u2019s forces. He himself was\nkilled, and Valdemar at last was King of all Denmark.\n\nFrom that time the three friends were inseparable as in the old\ndays when they played about the fields of Fjenneslev. Absalon was\nthe keeper of the King\u2019s conscience who was not afraid to tell him\nthe truth when he needed to hear it. And where they were Esbern\nwas found, never wavering in his loyalty to either. Within a year\nAbsalon was made bishop of Roskilde, the chief See of Denmark.\nSaxo innocently discovers to us King Valdemar\u2019s little ruse to\nhave his friend chosen. He was yet a very young man, scarce turned\nthirty, and had not been considered at all for the vacancy. There\nwere three candidates, all of powerful families, and, according to\necclesiastical law, the brethren of the chapter were the electors.\nThe King went to their meeting and addressed them in person.\nNothing was farther from him, he said, than to wish to interfere\nwith their proper rights. Each must do as his conscience dictated,\nunhindered. And with that he laid on the table _four_ books with\nblank leaves and bade them write down their names in them, each for\nhis own choice, to get the matter right on the record. The brethren\nthanked him kindly and all voted \u201cnicely together\u201d for Absalon. So\nthree of the books were wasted. But presently Saxo found good use\nfor them.\n\nFor now had come the bishop\u2019s chance of putting in practice the\ngreat abbot\u2019s precepts. \u201cPray and fight\u201d was the motto he had\nwritten into the Knights Templars\u2019 rule, and Absalon had made it\nhis own. Of what use was it to build up the church at home, when\nany day might see it raided by its enemies who were always watching\ntheir chance outside? The Danish waters swarmed with pirates, the\nvery pagans against whom Abbot Bernard had preached his crusade. Of\nthem all the Wends were the worst, as they were the most powerful\nof the Slav tribes that still resisted the efforts of their\nneighbors, the Christian Germans, to dislodge them from their old\nhome on the Baltic. They lived in the island of R\u00fcgen, fairly in\nsight of the Danish shores. Every favoring wind blew them across\nthe sea in shoals to burn and ravage. The Danes, once the terror of\nthe seas, had given over roving when they accepted the White Christ\nin exchange for Thor and his hammer, and now, when they would be at\npeace, they were in turn beset by this relentless enemy, who burned\ntheir homes and their crops and dragged the peaceful husbandman\naway to make him a thrall or offer him up as a sacrifice to heathen\nidols. More than a third of all Denmark lay waste under their\nferocious assault. Here was the blow to be struck if the country\nwas to have peace and the church prosperity.\n\nThe chance to strike came speedily. Absalon had been bishop only\na few months when, on the evening before Palm Sunday, word was\nbrought that the enemy had landed, twenty-four ship-crews strong,\nand were burning and murdering as usual. Absalon marshalled his\neighteen house-carles and such of the country folk as he could,\nand fell upon the Wends, routing them utterly. A bare handful\nescaped, the rest were killed, while the bishop lost but a single\nman. He said mass next morning, red-handed it is true, but one may\nwell believe that for all that his Easter message reached hearts\nfilled with a new, glad hope for their homes and for the country.\nThat was a bishop they could understand. So the first blow Absalon\nstruck for his people was at home. But he did not long wait for\nthe enemy to come to him. Half his long and stirring life he lived\non the seas, seeking them there. Saxo mentions, in speaking of his\nreturn from one of his cruises, that he had then been nine months\non shipboard. And in a way he was shepherding his flock there, if\nit was with a scourge; for, many years before, a Danish king had\npunished the Wends in their own home and laid their lands under the\nSee of Roskilde, though little good it did them or any one else\nthen. But when Absalon had got his grip, there were days when he\nbaptized as many as a thousand of them into the true faith.\n\nHe was not altogether alone in the stand he took. Here and there,\nfrom very necessity, the people had organized to resist the\ninvaders, but as no one could tell where they would strike next,\nthey were not often successful, and fear and discouragement sat\nheavy on the land. From his own city of Roskilde a little fleet of\nswift sailers under the bold Wedeman had for years waged relentless\nwar upon the freebooters and had taken four times the number of\ntheir own ships. Their crews were organized into a brotherhood\nwith vows like an order of fighting monks. Before setting out on\na cruise they were shriven and absolved. Their vows bound them to\nunceasing vigilance, to live on the plainest of fare, to sleep\non their arms, ready for instant attack, and to the rescue of\nChristians, wherever they were found in captivity. The Roskilde\nguild became the strong core of the King\u2019s armaments in his score\nof campaigns against the Wends.\n\nPerhaps it was not strange that Valdemar should be of two minds\nabout venturing to attack so formidable an enemy in his own house.\nThe nation was cowed and slow to move. In fact, from the first\nexpedition, that started with 250 vessels, only seven returned with\nthe standard, keeping up a running fight all the way across the\nBaltic with pursuing Wends. The rest had basely deserted. On the\nway over, the King, listening to their doubts and fears, turned\nback himself once, but Absalon, who always led in the attack and\nwas the last on the homeward run, overtook him and gave him the\ntalking to be deserved. Saxo, who was very likely there and heard,\nfor there is little doubt that he accompanied his master on many of\nthe campaigns he so vividly describes, gives us a verbatim report\nof the lecture:\n\n\u201cWhat wonder,\u201d said the bishop, \u201cif the words stick in our throats\nand are nigh to stifling us, when such grievous dole is ours!\nGrieve we must, indeed, to find in you such a turncoat that naught\nbut dishonor can come of it. You follow where you should lead, and\nthose you should rule over, you make your peers. There is nothing\nto stop us but our own craven souls, hunt as we may for excuses. Is\nit with such laurel you would bind your crown? with such high deed\nyou would consecrate your reign?\u201d\n\nThe King was hard hit, and showed it, but he walked away without\na word. In the night a furious storm swept the sea and kept the\nfleet in shelter four whole days, during which Valdemar\u2019s anger had\ntime to cool. He owned then that Absalon was right, and the friends\nshook hands. The King gave order to make sail as soon as the gale\nabated. If there was still a small doubt in Absalon\u2019s mind as he\nturned, on taking leave, and asked, \u201cWhat now, if we must turn back\nonce more?\u201d Valdemar set it at rest:\n\n\u201cThen you write me from Wendland,\u201d he laughed, \u201cand tell me how\nthings are there.\u201d\n\nIf little glory or gain came to the Danes from this first\nexpedition, at least they landed in the enemy\u2019s country and made\nreprisal for past tort. The spirit of the people rose and shamed\nthem for their cowardice. When the King\u2019s summons went round again,\nas it did speedily, there were few laggards. Attacked at home, the\nWends lost much of the terror they had inspired. Before many moons,\nthe chronicle records, the Danes cut their spear-shafts short, that\nthey might the more handily get at the foe. Scarce a year passed\nthat did not see one or more of these crusades. Absalon preached\nthem all, and his ship was ever first in landing. In battle he and\nthe King fought shoulder to shoulder. In the spring of 1169, he\nhad at last his wish: the heathen idols were destroyed and their\ntemples burned.\n\nThe holy city of the Wends, Arcona, stood on a steep cliff,\ninaccessible save from the west, where a wall a hundred feet high\ndefended it. While the sacred banner Stanitza waved over it the\nDanes might burn and kill, but the power of Svantevit was unbroken.\nSvantevit was the god of gods in whose presence his own priests\ndared not so much as breathe. When they had to, they must go to\nthe door and breathe in the open, a good enough plan if Saxo\u2019s\ndisgust at the filth of the Wendish homes was justified. Svantevit\nwas a horrid monster with four heads, and girt about with a huge\nsword. Up till then the Christian arms had always been stayed at\nhis door, but this time the King laid siege to Arcona, determined\nto make an end of him. Some of the youngsters in his army, making\na mock assault upon the strong walls, discovered an accidental\nhollow under the great tower over which the Stanitza flew and,\nseizing upon a load of straw that was handy, stuffed it in and set\nit on fire. It was done in a frolic, but when the tower caught\nfire and was burned and the holy standard fell, Absalon was quick\nto see his advantage, and got the King to order a general assault.\nThe besieged Wends, having no water, tried to put out the fire\nwith milk, but, says the chronicle, \u201cit only fed the flames.\u201d They\nfought desperately till, between fire and foe, they were seized\nwith panic and, calling loudly upon Absalon in their extremity,\noffered to give up their city. The army clamored for the revenge\nthat was at last within their grasp, and the King hesitated; but\nAbsalon met the uproar firmly, reminding them that they had crossed\nthe seas to convert the heathen, not to sack their towns.\n\nThe city was allowed to surrender and the people were spared, but\nSvantevit and his temple were destroyed. A great crowd of his\nfollowers had gathered to see him crush his enemies at the last,\nand Absalon cautioned the men who cut the idol down to be careful\nthat he did not fall on them and so seem to justify their hopes.\n\u201cHe fell with so great a noise that it was a wonder,\u201d says Saxo,\nna\u00efvely; \u201cand in the same moment the fiend ran out of the temple in\na black shape with such speed that no eye could follow him or see\nwhere he went.\u201d Svantevit was dragged out of the town and chopped\ninto bits. That night he fed the fires of the camp. So fickle is\npopular favor that when the crowd saw that nothing happened, they\nspurned the god loudly before whom they had grovelled in the dust\ntill then.\n\n[Illustration: FALL OF ARCONA. THE IDOL SVANTEVIT DESTROYED]\n\nWhen they heard of Arcona\u2019s fall in the royal city of Karents, they\nhastened with offers of surrender, and Absalon went there with a\nsingle ship\u2019s crew to take possession. They were met by 6000 armed\nWends, who guarded the narrow approach to the city. In single file\nthey walked between the ranks of the enemy, who stood with inverted\nspears, watching them in sullen silence. His men feared a trap, but\nAbsalon strode ahead unmoved. Coming to the temple of their local\ngod, Rygievit, he attacked him with his axe and bade his guard fall\nto, which they did. Saxo has left us a unique description of this\nidol that stood behind purple hangings, fashioned of oak \u201cin every\nevil and revolting shape. The swallows had made their nests in his\nmouths and throats\u201d (there were seven in so many faces) \u201cand filled\nhim up with all manner of stinking uncleanness. Truly, for such god\nwas such sacrifice fit.\u201d He had a sword for every one of his seven\nfaces, buckled about his ample waist, but for all that he went the\nway of the others, and even had to put up with the indignity of\nthe Christian priests standing upon him while he was being dragged\nout. That seems to have helped cure his followers of their faith\nin him. They delivered the temple treasure into the hands of the\nKing\u2014seven chests filled with money and valuables, among them a\nsilver cup which the wretched King Svend had sent to Svantevit as\na bribe to the Wends for joining him against his own country and\nkin. But those days were ended. It was the Danes\u2019 turn now, and\nWendland was laid waste until \u201cthe swallows found no eaves of any\nhouse whereunder to build their nests and were forced to build them\non the ships.\u201d A sad preliminary to bringing the country under the\nrule of the Prince of Peace; but in the scheme of those days the\nsword was equal partner with the cross in leading men to the true\nGod.\n\nThe heathen temples were destroyed and churches built on their\nsites of the timber gathered for the siege of Arcona. The people,\ndeserted by their own, accepted the Christians\u2019 God in good faith,\nand were baptized in hosts, thirteen hundred on one day and nine\nhundred on the next. Three days and nights Absalon saw no sleep. He\ndid nothing half-way. No sooner was he back home than he sent over\npriests and teachers supplied with everything, even food for their\nkeep, so that they \u201cshould not be a burden to the people whom they\nhad come to show the way to salvation.\u201d\n\nThe Wends were conquered, but the end was not yet. They had savage\nneighbors, and many a crusade did Absalon lead against them in\nthe following years, before the new title of the Danish rulers,\n\u201cKing of the Slavs and Wends,\u201d was much more than an empty boast.\nHe organized a regular sea patrol of one-fourth of the available\nships, of which he himself took command, and said mass on board\nmuch oftener than in the Roskilde church. It is the sailor, the\nwarrior, the leader of men one sees through all the troubled years\nof his royal friend\u2019s life. Now the Danish fleet is caught in\nthe inland sea before Stettin, unable to make its way out, and\nalready the heathen hosts are shouting their triumph on shore.\nIt is Absalon, then, who finds the way and, as one would expect,\nhe forces it. The captains wail over the trap and abuse him for\ngetting them into it. Absalon, disdaining to answer them, leads\nhis ships in single file straight for the gap where the Wendish\nfleet lies waiting, and gets the King to attack with his horsemen\non shore. Between them the enemy is routed, and the cowards are\nshamed. But when they come to make amends, he is as unmoved as ever\nand will have none of it. Again, when he is leading his men to the\nattack on a walled town, a bridge upon which they crowd breaks, and\nit is the bishop who saves his comrades from drowning, swimming\nashore with them in full armor.\n\nResting in his castle at Haffn, the present Copenhagen, which he\nbuilt as a defence against the sea-rovers, he hears, while in his\nbath, his men talking of strange ships that are sailing into the\nSound, and, hastily throwing on his clothes, gives chase and kills\ntheir crews, for they were pirates whose business was murder, and\nthey merely got their deserts. In the pursuit his archers \u201cpinned\nthe hands of the rowers to the oars with their arrows\u201d and crippled\nthem, so skilful had much practice made them. Turn the leaf of\nSaxo\u2019s chronicle, and we find him under R\u00fcgen with his fleet,\nprotecting the now peaceful Wendish fishermen in their autumn\nherring-catch, on which their livelihood depended. Of such stuff\nwas made the bishop who\n\n      \u201cUsed his trusty Danish sword\n      As the Pope his staff in Rome.\u201d\n\nWherever danger threatens Valdemar and Absalon, Esbern is found,\ntoo, earning the name of the Fleet (Snare), which the people had\nfondly given to their favorite. Where the fighting was hardest, he\nwas sure to be. The King\u2019s son had ventured too far and was caught\nin a tight place by an overwhelming force, when Esbern pushed his\nship in between him and the enemy and bore the brunt of a fight\nthat came near to making an end of him. He had at last only a\nsingle man left, but the two made a stand against a hundred. \u201cWhen\nthe heathen saw his face they fled in terror.\u201d At last they knocked\nhim senseless with a stone and would have killed him, but in the\nnick of time the King\u2019s men came to the rescue.\n\nComing home from Norway he ran afoul of forty pirate ships under\nthe coast of Seeland. He tried to steal past; forty against one\nwere heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The\npirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready\nfor a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The\nsteersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own.\nHe beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened\nand they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods\nthat they would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner on\none of their ships had told who he was. But Esbern had more than\none string to his bow. He sent a man aloft with flint and steel\nto strike fire in the top, and the pirates, believing that he was\nsignalling to a fleet he had in ambush, fled helter-skelter. Esbern\ngot home safe.\n\nThe German emperors\u2019 fingers had always itched for the\nover-lordship of the Danish isles, and they have not ceased to\ndo so to this day. When Frederick Barbarossa drove Alexander III\nfrom Rome and set up a rival Pope in his place, Archbishop Eskild\nof Lund, who was the Primate of the North, championed the exiled\nPope\u2019s case, and Valdemar, whose path the ambitious priest had\ncrossed more than once, let it be known that he inclined to the\nEmperor\u2019s cause, in part probably from mere pique, perhaps also\nbecause he thought it good politics. The archbishop in a rage\nsummoned Absalon and bade him join him in a rising against the\nKing. Absalon\u2019s answer is worthy the man and friend:\n\n\u201cMy oath to you I will keep, and in this wise, that I will not\ncounsel you to your own undoing. Whatever your cause against the\nKing, war against him you cannot, and succeed. And this know, that\nnever will I join with you against my liege lord, to whom I have\nsworn fealty and friendship with heart and soul all the days of my\nlife.\u201d\n\nHe could not persuade the archbishop, who went his own way and was\nbeaten and exiled for a season, nor could he prevent the King from\nyielding to the blandishments of Frederick and getting mixed up\nin the papal troubles; but he went with him to Germany and saved\nhim at the last moment from committing himself by making him leave\nthe church council just as the anti-pope was about to pronounce\nsentence of excommunication against Alexander. He commanded Absalon\nto remain, as a servant of the church, but Absalon replied calmly\nthat he was not there in that capacity, but as an attendant on\nhis King, and must follow where he went. It appeared speedily\nthat the Emperor\u2019s real object was to get Valdemar to own him\nas his over-lord, and this he did, to Absalon\u2019s great grief, on\nthe idle promise that Frederick would join him in his war upon\nall the Baltic pagans. However, it was to be a purely personal\nmatter, in nowise affecting his descendants. That much was saved,\nand Absalon lived long enough to fling back, as the counsellor of\nValdemar\u2019s son, from behind the stout wall he built at Denmark\u2019s\nsouthern gate, the Emperor\u2019s demand for homage, with the reply that\n\u201cthe King ruled in Denmark with the same right as the Emperor in\nGermany, and was no man\u2019s subject.\u201d\n\nHowever grievously Absalon had offended the aged archbishop, when\nafter forty years in his high office illness compelled him to lay\nit down, he could find no one so worthy to step into his shoes. He\nsent secretly to Rome and got the Pope\u2019s permission to name his own\nsuccessor, before he called a meeting of the church. The account of\nwhat followed is the most singular of all Saxo\u2019s stories. Valdemar\ndid not know what was coming and, fearing fresh trouble, got the\narchbishop to swear on the bones of the saints before them all\nthat he was not moved to abdication by hate of the King, or by any\ncoercion whatever. Then the venerable priest laid his staff, his\nmitre, and his ring on the altar and announced that he had done\nwith it all forever. But he had made up his mind not to use the\npower given him by the Pontiff. They might choose his successor\nthemselves. He would do nothing to influence their action.\n\nThe bishops and clergy went to the King and asked him if he had any\nchoice. The King said he had, but if he made it known he would get\nno thanks for it and might estrange his best friend. If he did not,\nhe would certainly be committing a sin. He did not know what to do.\n\n\u201cName him,\u201d said they, and Valdemar told them it was the bishop of\nRoskilde.\n\nAt that the old archbishop got up and insisted on the election then\nand there; but Absalon would have none of it. The burden was too\nheavy for his shoulders, he said. However, the clergy seized him,\n\u201cbeing,\u201d says Saxo, who without doubt was one of them, \u201cthe more\nemboldened to do so as the archbishop himself laid hands upon him\nfirst.\u201d Intoning the hymn sung at archiepiscopal consecrations,\nthey tried to lead him to the altar. He resisted with all his might\nand knocked several of the brethren down. Vestments were torn and\nscattered, and a mighty ruction arose, to which the laity, not to\nbe outdone, added by striking up a hymn of their own. Archbishop\nand King tried vainly to make peace; the clamor and battle only\nrose the higher. Despite his struggles, Absalon was dragged to the\nhigh seat, but as they were about to force him into it, he asked\nleave to say a single word, and instantly appealed his case to the\nPope. So there was an end; but when the aged Eskild, on the plea\nof weakness, begged him to pronounce the benediction, he refused\nwarily, because so he would be exercising archiepiscopal functions\nand would be _de facto_ incumbent of the office.[6]\n\nHere, as always, Absalon thought less of himself than of his\ncountry, so the event showed. For when the Pope heard his plea,\nthough he decided against him, he allowed him to hold the bishopric\nof Roskilde together with the higher office, and so he was left at\nValdemar\u2019s side to help finish their work of building up Denmark\nwithin and without. At Roskilde he spent, as a matter of fact, most\nof his time while Valdemar lived. At Lund he would have been in\na distant part of the country, parted from his friend and out of\ntouch with the things that were the first concern of his life.\n\nThey were preparing to aim a decisive blow against the Pomeranian\npagans when Valdemar died, on the very day set for the sailing. The\nparting nearly killed Absalon. Saxo draws a touching picture of him\nweeping bitterly as he said the requiem mass over his friend, and\nobserves: \u201cWho can doubt that his tears, rising with the incense,\ngave forth a peculiar and agreeable savour in high heaven before\nGod?\u201d The plowmen left their fields and carried the bier, with sobs\nand lamentations, to the church in Ringsted, where the great King\nrests. His sorrow laid Absalon on a long and grievous sick-bed,\nfrom which he rose only when Valdemar\u2019s son needed and called him.\n\nIn the fifteen years that follow we see his old warlike spirit\nstill unbroken. Thus his defiance of the German Emperor, whose\nanger was hot. Frederick, in revenge, persuaded the Pomeranian duke\nBugislav to organize a raid on Denmark with a fleet of five hundred\nsail. Scant warning reached Absalon of the danger. King Knud was\naway, and there was no time to send for him. Mustering such vessels\nas were near, he sailed across the Baltic and met the enemy under\nR\u00fcgen the day after Whitsuntide (1184). The bishop had gone ashore\nto say mass on the beach, when word was brought that the great\nfleet was in sight. Hastily pulling off his robe and donning armor\ninstead, he made for his ship with the words: \u201cNow let our swords\nsing the praise of God.\u201d The Pomeranians were taken completely by\nsurprise. They did not know the Danes were there, and when they\nheard the archbishop\u2019s dreaded war-cry raised, they turned and fled\nin such terror and haste that eighteen of their ships were run down\nand sunk with all on board. On one, a rower hanged himself for fear\nof falling into the hands of the Danes. Absalon gave chase, and the\nrout became complete. Of the five hundred ships only thirty-five\nescaped; all the rest were either sunk or taken. Duke Bugislav soon\nafter became a vassal of Denmark, and of the Emperor\u2019s plots there\nwas an end.\n\nIt was the last blow, and the story of it went far and wide.\nAbsalon\u2019s work was nearly done. Denmark was safe from her enemies.\nThe people were happy and prosperous. Valdemar\u2019s son ruled\nunchallenged, and though he was childless, by his side stood his\nbrother, a manly youth who, not yet full grown, had already shown\nsuch qualities of courage and sagacious leadership that the old\narchbishop could hang up the sword with heart at ease. The promise\nwas kept. The second Valdemar became Denmark\u2019s royal hero for all\ntime. Absalon\u2019s last days were devoted to strengthening the Church,\naround which he had built such a stout wall. He built churches and\ncloisters, and guided them with a wise and firm hand. And he made\nSaxo, his clerk, set it all down as an eye-witness of these things,\nand as one who came to the task by right; for, says the chronicler,\n\u201chave not my grandfather and his father before him served the King\nwell on land and sea, hence why should not I serve him with my\nbook-learning?\u201d He bears witness that the bishop himself is his\nauthority for much that he has written.\n\nArchbishop Absalon closed his eyes on St. Benedict\u2019s Day, March\n21, 1201, in the cloister at Sor\u00f6 which Sir Asker built and where\nhe lived his last days in peace. Absalon\u2019s statue of bronze, on\nhorseback, battle-axe in hand, stands in the market square in\nCopenhagen, the city he founded and of which he is the patron\nsaint; but his body lies within the quiet sanctuary where, in\nthe deep forest glades, one listens yet for the evensong of the\nmonks, long silent now. When his grave was opened, in 1826, the\nlines of his tall form, clad in clerical robes, were yet clearly\ntraceable. The strong hands, turned to dust, held a silver chalice\nin which lay his episcopal ring. They are there to be seen to-day,\nwith remnants of his staff that had partly crumbled away. No Dane\napproaches his grave without emotion. \u201cAll Denmark grieved for\nhim,\u201d says a German writer of that day, \u201cand commended his soul\nto Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, for that in his lifetime he\nhad led many who were enemies to peace and concord.\u201d In his old\ncathedral, in Roskilde town, lies Saxo, according to tradition\nunder an unmarked stone. When he went to rest his friend and master\nhad slept five years.\n\nEsbern outlived his brother three years. The hero of so many\nbattles met his death at last by an accidental fall in his own\nhouse. The last we hear of him is at a meeting in the Christmas\nseason, 1187, where emissaries of Pope Gregory VIII preached a\ngeneral crusade. Their hearers wept at the picture they drew of the\nsufferings Christians were made to endure in the Holy Land. Then\narose Esbern and reminded them of the great deeds of the fathers\nat home and abroad. The faith and the fire of Absalon were in his\nwords:\n\n\u201cThese things they did,\u201d he said, \u201cfor the glory of their name and\nrace, knowing nothing of our holy religion. Shall we, believing,\ndo less? Let us lay aside our petty quarrels and take up this\ngreater cause. Let us share the sufferings of the saints and earn\ntheir reward. Perhaps we shall win\u2014God keeps the issue. Let him who\ncannot give himself, give of his means. So shall all we, sharing\nthe promise, share also the reward.\u201d\n\nThe account we have says that many took the cross, such was the\neffect of his words, more likely of the man and what he was and had\nbeen in the sight of them all throughout his long life.\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[3] Pronounced Reeg.\n\n[4] Pronounced Snare, with a as in are. In the Danish hare rhymes\nwith snare, so pronounced.\n\n[5] Pronounced Veethe.\n\n[6] That all this in no way affected the personal relations of the\ntwo men Saxo assures us in one of the little human touches with\nwhich his chronicle abounds. When Eskild was going away to end his\ndays as a monk in the monastery of Clairvaux, he rested awhile with\nAbsalon at his castle Haffn, where he was received as a father. The\nold man suffered greatly from cold feet, and Absalon made a box\nwith many little holes in, and put a hot brick in it. With this at\nhis feet, Eskild was able to sleep, and he was very grateful to\nAbsalon, both because of the comfort it gave him and \u201cbecause that\nhe perceived that filial piety rather than skill in the healer\u2019s\nart\u201d prompted the invention.\n\n\n\n\nKING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG\n\n\nTo the court of King Ottocar of Bohemia there came in the year\n1205 a brilliant embassy from far-off Denmark to ask the hand of\nhis daughter Dragomir for King Valdemar, the young ruler of that\ncountry. Sir Strange[7] Ebbesoen and Bishop Peder Sunes\u00f6n were the\nspokesmen, and many knights, whose fame had travelled far in the\nlong years of fighting to bring the Baltic pagans under the cross,\nrode with them. The old king received them with delight. Valdemar\nwas not only a good son-in-law for a king to have, being himself\na great and renowned ruler, but he was a splendid knight, tall\nand handsome, of most courteous bearing, ambitious, manly, and of\nready wit. So their suit prospered well. The folk-song tells how\nthey fared; how, according to the custom of those days, Sir Strange\nwedded the fair princess by proxy for his lord, and how King\nOttocar, when he bade her good-by, took this promise of her:\n\n      In piety, virtue, and fear of God,\n      Let all thy days be spent;\n      And ever thy subjects be thy thought,\n      Their hopes on thy care be bent.\n\nThe daughter kept her vow. Never was queen more beloved of her\npeople than Dagmar. That was the name they gave her in Denmark, for\nthe Bohemian Dragomir was strange to them. Dagmar meant daybreak\nin their ancient tongue, and it really seemed as if a new and\nbeautiful day dawned upon the land in her coming. The dry pages of\nhistory have little enough to tell of her beyond the simple fact of\nher marriage and untimely death, though they are filled with her\nfamous husband\u2019s deeds; but not all of his glorious campaigns that\nearned for him the name of \u201cThe Victor\u201d have sunk so deep into the\npeople\u2019s memory, or have taken such hold of their hearts, as the\nlovely queen who\n\n      Came without burden, she came with peace;\n      She came the good peasant to cheer.\n\nThrough all the centuries the people have sung her praise, and they\nsing it yet. Of the many folk-songs that have come down from the\nmiddle ages, those that tell of Queen Dagmar are the sweetest, as\nthey are the most mournful, for her happiness was as brief as her\nlife was beautiful.\n\nThey sailed homeward over sunny seas, until they came to the shore\nwhere the royal lover awaited his bride, impatiently scanning the\nhorizon for the gilded dragon\u2019s head of the ship that bore her. The\nminstrel sings of the great wedding that was held in the old city\nof Ribe.[8] The gray old cathedral in which they knelt together\nstill stands; but of Valdemar\u2019s strong castle only a grass-grown\nhill is left. It was the privilege of a bride in those days to ask\na gift of her husband on the morning after the wedding, and have it\ngranted without question. Two boons did Dagmar crave,\n\n  \u201cright early in the morning, long before it was day\u201d:\n\none, that the plow-tax might be forgiven the peasant, and that\nthose who for rising against it had been laid in irons be set free;\nthe other, that the prison door of Bishop Valdemar be opened.\nBishop Valdemar was the arch-enemy of the King. The first request\nhe granted; but the other he refused for cause:\n\n      An\u2019 he comes out, Bishop Valdemar,\n      Widow he makes you this year.\n\nAnd he did his worst; for in the end the King yielded to Dagmar\u2019s\nprayers, and much mischief came of it.\n\nSeven years the good queen lived. Seven centuries have not dimmed\nthe memory of them, or of her. The King was away in a distant part\nof the country when they sent to him in haste with the message\nthat the queen was dying. The ballad tells of his fears as he sees\nDagmar\u2019s page coming, and they proved only too true.\n\n      The king his checker-board shut in haste,\n      The dice they rattled and rung.\n      Forbid it God, who dwells in heaven,\n      That Dagmar should die so young.\n\nIn the wild ride over field and moor, the King left his men far\nbehind:\n\n      When the king rode out of Skanderborg\n      Him followed a hundred men.\n      But when he rode o\u2019er Ribe bridge,\n      Then rode the king alone.\n\nThe tears of weeping women told him as he thundered over the\ndrawbridge of the castle that he was too late. But Dagmar had only\nswooned. As he throws himself upon her bed she opens her eyes, and\nsmiles upon her husband. Her last prayer, as her first, is for\nmercy and peace. Her sin, she says, is not great; she has done\nnothing worse than to lace her silken sleeves on a Sunday. Then she\ncloses her eyes with a tired sigh:\n\n      The bells of heaven are chiming for me;\n      No more may I stay to speak.\n\nThus the folk-song. Long before Dagmar went to her rest, Bishop\nValdemar had stirred up all Germany to wreak his vengeance upon\nthe King. He was an ambitious, unscrupulous priest, who hated his\nroyal master because he held himself entitled to the crown, being\nthe natural son of King Knud, who was murdered at Roskilde, as told\nin the story of Absalon. While they were yet young men, when he\nsaw that the people followed his rival, he set the German princes\nagainst Denmark, a task he never found hard. But young Valdemar\nmade short work of them. He took the strong cities on the Elbe\nand laid the lands of his adversaries under the Danish crown. The\nbishop he seized, and threw him into the dungeon of S\u00f6borg Castle,\nwhere he had sat thirteen years when Dagmar\u2019s prayers set him free.\nHe could hardly walk when he came out, but he could hate, and all\nthe world knew it. The Pope bound him with heavy oaths never to\nreturn to Denmark, and made him come to Italy so that he could keep\nan eye on him himself. But two years had not passed before he broke\nhis oath, and fled to Bremen, where the people elected him to the\nvacant archbishopric and its great political power. Forthwith he\nbegan plotting against his native land.\n\nIn the bitter feud between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines he found\nhis opportunity. One of the rival emperors marched an army north\nto help the perjured priest. King Valdemar hastened to meet them,\nbut on the eve of battle the Emperor was slain by one of his own\nmen. On Sunday, when the archbishop was saying mass in the Bremen\ncathedral, an unknown knight, the visor of whose helmet was closed\nso that no one saw his face, strode up to the altar, and laying a\npapal bull before him, cried out that he was accursed, and under\nthe ban of the church. The people fled, and forsaken by all, the\nwretched man turned once more to Rome in submission. But though the\nPope forgave him on condition that he meddle no more with politics,\nwar, or episcopal office, another summer found him wielding sword\nand lance against the man he hated, this time under the banner of\nthe Guelphs. The Germans had made another onset on Denmark, but\nagain King Valdemar defeated them. The bishop intrenched himself in\nHamburg, and made a desperate resistance, but the King carried the\ncity by storm. The beaten and hopeless man fled, and shut himself\nup in a cloister in Hanover, where daily and nightly he scourged\nhimself for his sins. If it is true that \u201chell was fashioned by the\nsouls that hated,\u201d not all the penance of all the years must have\navailed to save him from the torments of the lost.\n\nDenmark now had peace on its southern border. Dagmar was dead, and\nValdemar, whose restless soul yearned for new worlds to conquer,\nturned toward the east where the wild Esthland tribes were guilty\nof even worse outrages than the Wends before Absalon tamed them.\nThe dreadful cruelties practised by these pagans upon christian\ncaptives cried aloud to all civilized Europe, and Valdemar took the\ncross \u201cfor the honor of the Virgin Mary and the absolution of his\nsins,\u201d and gathered a mighty fleet, the greatest ever assembled in\nDanish waters. With more than a thousand ships he sailed across\nthe Baltic. The Pope sped them with his apostolic blessing, and\ntook king and people into his especial care, forbidding any one to\nattack the country while they were away converting the heathen.\nArchbishop Anders led the crusade with the king. As the fleet\napproached the shore they saw it covered with an innumerable host\nof the enemy. So great was their multitude that the crusaders\nquailed before the peril of landing; but the archbishop put heart\ninto them, and led the fleet in fervent prayer to the God of\nbattle. Then they landed without hindrance.\n\nThere was an old stronghold there called Lyndanissa that had\nfallen into decay. The crusaders busied themselves for two days\nwith building another and better fort. On the third day, being St.\nVitus\u2019 Day, they rested, fearing no harm. The Esthlanders had not\ntroubled them. Some of their chiefs had even come in with an offer\nof surrender. They were willing to be converted, they said, and\nthe priests were baptizing them after vespers, while the camp was\nmaking ready for the night, when suddenly the air was filled with\nthe yells of countless savages. On every side they broke from the\nwoods, where they had been gathering unsuspected, and overwhelmed\nthe camp. The guards were hewn down, the outposts taken, and the\nKing\u2019s men were falling back in confusion, their standard lost,\nwhen Prince Vitislav of R\u00fcgen who had been camping with his men in\na hollow between the sand-hills, out of the line of attack, threw\nhimself between them and the Esthlanders, and gave the Danes time\nto form their lines.\n\nIn the twilight of the June evening the battle raged with great\nfury. With the King at their head, who had led them to victory on\nso many hard-fought fields, the Danes drove back their savage foes\ntime after time, literally hewing their way through their ranks\nwith sword and battle-axe. But they were hopelessly outnumbered.\nTheir hearts misgave them as they saw ten heathen spring out of the\nground for every one that was felled. The struggle grew fiercer as\nnight came on. The Christians were fighting for life; defeat meant\nthat they must perish to a man, by the sword or upon pagan altars;\nescape there was none. Upon the cliff overlooking the battle-field\nthe archbishop and his priests were praying for success to the\nKing\u2019s arms. Tradition that has been busy with this great battle\nall through the ages tells how, while the aged bishop\u2019s hands were\nraised toward heaven, victory leaned to the Danes; but when he\ngrew tired, and let them fall, the heathen won forward, until the\npriests held up his hands and once more the tide of battle rolled\nback from the shore, and the Christian war-cry rose higher.\n\nSuddenly, in the clash of steel upon steel and the wild tumult of\nthe conflict, there arose a great and wondering cry \u201cthe banner!\nthe banner! a miracle!\u201d and Christian and pagan paused to listen.\nOut of the sky, as it seemed, over against the hill upon which the\npriests knelt, a blood-red banner with a great white cross was\nseen falling into the ranks of the Christian knights, and a voice\nresounded over the battle-field, \u201cBear this high, and victory\nshall be yours.\u201d With the exultant cry, \u201cFor God and the King,\u201d\nthe crusaders seized it, and charged the foe. Terror-stricken,\nthe Esthlanders wavered, then turned, and fled. The battle became\na massacre. Thousands were slain. The chronicles say that the\ndead lay piled fathom-high on the field that ran red with blood.\nUpon it, when the pursuit was over, Valdemar knelt with his men,\nand they bowed their heads in thanksgiving, while the venerable\narchbishop gave praise to God for the victory.\n\nThat is the story of the Dannebrog which has been the flag of the\nDanes seven hundred years. Whether the archbishop had brought it\nwith him intending to present it to King Valdemar, and threw it\ndown among the fighting hordes in the moment of extreme peril,\nor whether, as some think, the Pope himself had sent it to the\ncrusaders with a happy inspiration, the fact remains that it came\nto the Danes in this great battle, and on the very day which,\nfifty years before, had seen the fall of Arcona, and the end of\nidol-worship among the western Slavs. Three hundred years the\nstandard flew over the Danes fighting on land and sea. Then it was\nlost in a campaign against the Holstein counts and, when recovered\nhalf a century later, was hung up in the cathedral at Slesvig,\nwhere gradually it fell to pieces. In the first half of the\nNineteenth Century, when national feeling and national pride were\nat their lowest ebb, it was taken down with other moth-eaten old\nbanners, one day when they were cleaning up, and somebody made a\nbonfire of them in the street. Such was the fate of \u201cthe flag that\nfell from heaven,\u201d the sacred standard of the Danes. But it was\nnot the end of it. The Dannebrog flies yet over the Denmark of the\nValdemars, no longer great as then, it is true, nor master of its\nancient foes; but the world salutes it with respect, for there was\nnever blot of tyranny or treason upon it, and its sons own it with\npride wherever they go.\n\nKing Valdemar knighted five and thirty of his brave men on the\nbattle-field, and from that day the Order of the Dannebrog is said\nto date. It bears upon a white crusader\u2019s cross the slogan of the\ngreat fight \u201cFor God and the King,\u201d and on its reverse the date\nwhen it was won, \u201cJune 15, 1219.\u201d The back of paganism was broken\nthat day, and the conversion of all Esthland followed soon. King\nValdemar built the castle he had begun before he sailed home, and\ncalled it Reval, after one of the neighboring tribes. The Russian\ncity of that name grew up about it and about the church which\nArchbishop Anders reared. The Dannebrog became its arms, and its\npeople call it to this day \u201cthe city of the Danes.\u201d\n\nDenmark was now at the height of her glory. Her flag flew over all\nthe once hostile lands to the south and east, clear into Russia.\nThe Baltic was a Danish inland sea. King Valdemar was named\n\u201cVictor\u201d with cause. His enemies feared him; his people adored him.\nIn a single night foul treachery laid the whole splendid structure\nlow. The King and young Valdemar, Dagmar\u2019s son, with a small suite\nof retainers had spent the day hunting on the little island of Ly\u00f6.\nCount Henrik of Schwerin,\u2014the Black Count they called him,\u2014who had\njust returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was his guest.\nThe count hated Valdemar bitterly for some real or fancied injury,\nbut he hid his hatred under a friendly bearing and smooth speech.\nHe brought the King gifts from the Holy Sepulchre, hunted with\nhim, and was his friend. But by night, when the King and his son\nslept in their tent, unguarded, since no enemy was thought to be\nnear, he fell upon them with his cutthroats, bound and gagged them\ndespite their struggles, and gathering up all the valuables that\nlay around, to put the finishing touch upon his villainy, fled\nwith his prisoners \u201cin great haste and fear,\u201d while the King\u2019s\nmen slept. When they awoke, and tried to follow, they found their\nships scuttled. The count\u2019s boat had been lying under sail all day,\nhidden in a sheltered cove, awaiting his summons.\n\nGermany at last had the lion and its whelp in her grasp. In chains\nand fetters they were dragged from one dungeon to another. The\ntraitors dared not trust them long in any city, however strong. The\nGerman Emperor shook his fist at Count Henrik, but secretly he was\nglad. He would have liked nothing better than to have the precious\nspoil in his own power. The Pope thundered in Rome and hurled his\nban at the thugs. But the Black Count\u2019s conscience was as swarthy\nas his countenance; and besides, had he not just been to the Holy\nLand, and thereby washed himself clean of all his sins, past and\npresent?\n\nBehind prison walls, comforted only by Dagmar\u2019s son, sat the King,\ngrowing old and gray with anger and grief. Denmark lay prostrate\nunder the sudden blow, while her enemies rose on every side. Day by\nday word came of outbreaks in the conquered provinces. The people\ndid not know which way to turn; the strong hand that held the helm\nwas gone, and the ship drifted, the prey of every ill wind. It\nwas as if all that had been won by sixty years of victories and\nsacrifice fell away in one brief season. The forests filled with\nout-laws; neither peasant nor wayfarer, nor yet monk or nun in\ntheir quiet retreat, was safe from outrage; and pirates swarmed\nagain in bay and sound, where for two generations there had been\npeace. The twice-perjured Bishop Valdemar left his cloister cell\nonce more and girt on the sword, to take the kingdom he coveted by\nstorm.\n\nHe was met by King Valdemar\u2019s kinsman and friend, Albert of\nOrlamunde, who hastened to the frontier with all the men he could\ngather. They halted him with a treaty of peace that offered to set\nValdemar free if he would take his kingdom as a fief of the German\ncrown. He, Albert, so it was written, was to keep all his lands and\nmore, would he but sign it. He did not stop to hear the rest, but\nslashed the parchment into ribbons with his sword, and ordered an\ninstant advance. The bishop he made short work of, and he was heard\nof no more. But in the battle with the German princes Albert was\ndefeated and taken prisoner. The door of King Valdemar\u2019s dungeon\nwas opened only to let his friend in.\n\nAfter two years and a half in chains, Valdemar was ransomed by his\npeople with a great sum of gold. The Danish women gave their rings\nand their jewels to bring back their king. They flocked about him\nwhen he returned, and received him like the conqueror of old; but\nhe rode among them gray and stern, and his thoughts were far away.\n\nThey had made him swear on oath upon the sacrament, and all\nDenmark\u2019s bishops with him, before they set him free, that he\nwould not seek revenge. But once he was back in his own, he sent\nto Pope Gregory, asking him to loose him from an oath wrung from\nhim while he was helpless in the power of bandits. And the Pope\nresponded that to keep faith with traitors was no man\u2019s duty. Then\nback he rode over the River Eider into the enemy\u2019s land\u2014for they\nhad stripped Denmark of all her hard-won possessions south of\nthe ancient border of the kingdom, except Esthland and R\u00fcgen\u2014and\nwith him went every man who could bear arms in all the nation.\nHe crushed the Black Count who tried to block his way, and at\nBornh\u00f6ved met the German allies who had gathered from far and\nnear to give him battle. Well they knew that if Valdemar won, the\nreckoning would be terrible. All day they fought, and victory\nseemed to lean toward the Danes, when the base Holsteiners, the\nDanish rear-guard whom the enemy had bought to betray their king,\nturned their spears upon his army, and decided the day. The battle\nended in utter rout of Valdemar\u2019s forces. Four thousand Danish men\nwere slain. The King himself fell wounded on the field, his eye\npierced by an arrow, and would have fallen into the hands of the\nenemy once more but for an unknown German knight, who took him upon\nhis horse and bore him in the night over unfrequented paths to\nKiel, where he was safe.\n\n\u201cBut all men said that this great hurt befell the King because that\nhe brake the oath he swore upon the sacred body of the Lord.\u201d\n\nThe wars of Valdemar were over, but his sorrows were not. Four\nyears later the crushing blow fell when Dagmar\u2019s son, who was\ncrowned king to succeed him, lost his life while hunting. With him,\nsays the folk-song, died the hope of Denmark. The King had other\nsons, but to Dagmar\u2019s boy the people had given their love from\nthe first, as they had to his gentle mother. The old King and his\npeople grieved together.\n\nBut Valdemar rose above his sorrows. Great as he had been in the\ndays of victory, he was greater still in adversity. The country\nwas torn by the wars of three-score years, and in need of rest.\nHe gave his last days to healing the wounds the sword had struck.\nValdemar, the Victor, became Valdemar, the Law-giver. The laws of\nthe country had hitherto made themselves. They were the outgrowths\nof the people\u2019s ancient customs, passed down by word of mouth\nthrough the generations, and confirmed on Thing from time to time.\nKing Valdemar gave Denmark her first written laws that judged\nbetween man and man, in at least one of her provinces clear down\ninto our day. \u201cWith law shall land be built\u201d begins his code. \u201cThe\nlaw,\u201d it says, \u201cmust be honest, just, reasonable, and according to\nthe ways of the people. It must meet their needs, and speak plainly\nso that all men may know and understand what the law is. It is not\nto be made in any man\u2019s favor, but for the needs of all them who\nlive in the land.\u201d That is its purpose, and \u201cno man shall judge\n(condemn) the law which the King has given and the country chosen;\nneither shall he (the King) take it back without the will of the\npeople.\u201d That tells the story of Valdemar\u2019s day, and of the people\nwho are so near of kin with ourselves. They were not sovereign\nand subjects; they were a chosen king and a free people, working\ntogether \u201cwith law land to build.\u201d\n\nKing Valdemar was married twice. The folk-song represents Dagmar as\nurging the King with her dying breath\n\n  \u201cthat Bengerd, my lord, that base bad dame you never to wife\n  will take.\u201d\n\nBengerd, or Berengaria, was a Portuguese princess whom Valdemar\nmarried in spite of the warning, two years later. As the people had\nloved the fair Dagmar, so they hated the proud Southern beauty,\nwhether with reason or not. The story of her \u201cmorning gift,\u201d as it\nhas come down to us through the mists of time, is very different\nfrom the other. She asks the King, so the ballad has it, to give\nher Sams\u00f6, a great and fertile island, and \u201ca golden crown[9] for\nevery maid,\u201d but he tells her not to be quite so greedy:\n\n  There be full many an honest maid with not dry bread to eat.\n\nUndismayed, Bengerd objects that Danish women have no business\nto wear silken gowns, and that a good horse is not for a peasant\nlad. The King replies patiently that what a woman can buy she may\nwear for him, and that he will not take the lad\u2019s horse if he can\nfeed it. Bengerd is not satisfied. \u201cLet bar the land with iron\nchains\u201d is her next proposal, that neither man nor woman enter\nit without paying tax. Her husband says scornfully that Danish\nkings have never had need of such measures, and never will. He is\nplainly getting bored, and when she keeps it up, and begrudges the\nhusbandman more than \u201ctwo oxen and a cow,\u201d he loses his temper, and\npresumably there is a matrimonial tiff. Very likely most of this is\nfiction, bred of the popular prejudice. The King loved her, that\nis certain. She was a beautiful high-spirited woman, so beautiful\nthat many hundreds of years after, when her grave was opened, the\ndelicate oval of her skull excited admiration yet. But the people\nhated her. Twenty generations after her death it was their custom\nwhen passing her grave to spit on it with the exclamation \u201cOut upon\nthee, Bengerd! God bless the King of Denmark\u201d; for in good or evil\ndays they never wavered in their love and admiration for the king\nwho was a son of the first Valdemar, and the heir of his greatness\nand of that of the sainted Absalon. Tradition has it that Bengerd\nwas killed in battle, having gone with her husband on one of his\ncampaigns. \u201cIt was not heard in any place,\u201d says the folk-song\nwickedly, \u201cthat any one grieved for her.\u201d But the King mourned for\nhis beautiful queen to the end of his days.\n\nBengerd bore Valdemar three sons upon whom he lavished all the\naffection of his lonely old age. Erik he chose as his successor,\nand to keep his brothers loyal to him he gave them great fiefs and\nthus, unknowing, brought on the very trouble he sought to avoid,\nand set his foot on the path that led to Denmark\u2019s dismemberment\nafter centuries of bloody wars. For to his second son Abel he gave\nSlesvig, and Abel, when his brother became king, sought alliance\nwith the Holstein count Adolf,[10] the very one who had led the\nGermans at the fatal battle of Bornh\u00f6ved. The result was a war\nbetween the brothers that raged seven years, and laid waste the\nland. Worse was to follow, for Abel was only \u201cAbel in name, but\nCain in deed.\u201d But happily the old King\u2019s eyes were closed then,\nand he was spared the sight of one brother murdering the other for\nthe kingdom.\n\nSome foreboding of this seems to have troubled him in his last\nyears. It is related that once when he was mounting his horse to go\nhunting he fell into a deep reverie, and remained standing with his\nfoot in the stirrup a long time, while his men wondered, not daring\nto disturb him. At last one of them went to remind him that the\nsun was low in the west. The King awoke from his dream, and bade\nhim go at once to a wise old hermit who lived in a distant part of\nthe country. \u201cAsk him,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat King Valdemar was thinking\nof just now, and bring me his answer.\u201d The knight went away on his\nstrange errand, and found the hermit. And this was the message he\nbrought back: \u201cYour lord and master pondered as he stood by his\nhorse, how his sons would fare when he was dead. Tell him that war\nand discord they shall have, but kings they will all be.\u201d When the\nKing heard the prophecy he was troubled in mind, and called his\nsons and all his great knights to a council at which he pleaded\nwith them to keep the peace. But though they promised, he was\nbarely in his grave when riot and bloodshed filled the land. The\nclimax was reached when Abel inveigled his brother to his home with\nfair words and, once he had him in his power, seized him and gave\nhim over to his men to do with \u201cas they pleased.\u201d They understood\ntheir master only too well, and took King Erik out on the fjord in\nan open boat, and killed him there, scarce giving him time to say\nhis prayers. They weighted his body with his helmet, and sank it in\nthe deep.\n\nAbel made oath with four and twenty of his men that he was innocent\nof his brother\u2019s blood, and took the crown after him. But the foul\ncrime was soon avenged. Within a few years he was himself slain\nby a peasant in a rising of his own people. For a while his body\nlay unburied, the prey of beast and bird, and when it was interred\nin the Slesvig cathedral there was no rest for it. \u201cSuch turmoil\narose in the church by night that the monks could not chant their\nvigils,\u201d and in the end they took him out, and buried him in a\nswamp, with a stake driven through the heart to lay his ghost. But\nclear down to our time when people ceased to believe in ghosts, the\nfratricide was seen at night hunting through the woods, coal-black\nand on a white horse, with three fiery dogs trailing after; and\nblue flames burned over the sea where they vanished. That was how\nthe superstition of the people judged the man whom the nobles and\nthe priests made king, red-handed.\n\nChristopher, the youngest of the three brothers, was king last.\nHis end was no better than that of the rest. Indeed, it was worse.\nHardly yet forty years old, he died\u2014poisoned, it was said, by the\nAbbot Arnfast, in the sacrament as he knelt at the altar-rail\nin the Ribe cathedral. He was buried in the chancel where the\npenitents going to the altar walk over his grave. So, of all\nValdemar\u2019s four sons, not one died a peaceful, natural death. But\nkings they all were.\n\nValdemar was laid in Ringsted with his great father. He sleeps\nbetween his two queens. Dagmar\u2019s grave was disturbed in the late\nmiddle ages by unknown vandals, and the remains of Denmark\u2019s\nbest-loved queen were scattered. Only a golden cross, which she\nhad worn in life, somehow escaped, and found its way in course of\ntime into the museum of antiquities at Copenhagen, where it now is,\nits chief and priceless treasure. There also is a braid of Queen\nBengerd\u2019s hair that was found when her grave was opened in 1855.\nThe people\u2019s hate had followed her even there, and would not let\nher rest. The slab that covered her tomb had been pried off, and a\nround stone dropped into the place made for her head. Otherwise her\ngrave was undisturbed.\n\n\u201cTruly then fell the crown from the heads of Danish men,\u201d says\nthe old chronicle of King Valdemar\u2019s death, and black clouds were\ngathering ominously even then over the land. But in storm and\nstress, as in days that were fair, the Danish people have clung\nloyally to the memory of their beloved King and of his sweet Dagmar.\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[7] Pronounced as Strangle, with the l left out.\n\n[8] Pronounced Reebe, in two syllables.\n\n[9] A coin, probably.\n\n[10] That was the beginning of the Slesvig-Holstein question that\ntroubled Europe to our day; for the fashion set by Abel other\nrulers of his dukedom followed, and by degrees Slesvig came to\nbe reckoned with the German duchies, whereas up till then it had\nalways been South-Jutland, a part of Denmark proper.\n\n\n\n\nHOW THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID\n\n\nOn the map of Europe the mainland of Denmark looks like a beckoning\nfinger pointing due north and ending in a narrow sand-reef, upon\nwhich the waves of the North Sea and of the Kattegat break with\nunceasing clamor and strife. The heart of the peninsula, quite\none-fourth of its area, was fifty years ago a desert, a barren,\nmelancholy waste, where the only sign of life encountered by the\nhunter, gunning for heath-fowl and plover, was a rare shepherd\ntending a few lonesome sheep, and knitting mechanically on his\nendless stocking. The two, the lean sheep and the long stocking,\ntogether comprised the only industries which the heath afforded and\nwas thought capable of sustaining. A great change has taken place\nwithin the span of a single life, and it is all due to the clear\nsight and patient devotion of one strong man, the Gifford Pinchot\nof Denmark. The story of that unique achievement reads like the\ntale of the Sleeping Beauty who was roused from her hundred years\u2019\nsleep by the kiss of her lover prince. The prince who awoke the\nslumbering heath was a captain of engineers, Enrico Dalgas by name.\n\n[Illustration: THE HEATH AS IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO]\n\nNot altogether fanciful is the conceit. Barren, black, and\ndesolate, the great moor gripped the imagination as no smiling\nlandscape of field and forest could\u2014does yet, where enough of it\nremains. Far as eye reaches the dun heather covers hill and plain\nwith its sombre pall. Like gloomy sentinels, furry cattails nod in\nthe bog where the blue gentian peeps timidly into murky pools; the\nonly human habitation in sight some heath boer\u2019s ling-thatched hut,\nflanked by rows of peat stacks in vain endeavor to stay the sweep\nof the pitiless west wind. On the barrows where the vikings sleep\ntheir long sleep, the plover pipes its melancholy lay; between\nsteep banks a furtive brook steals swiftly by as if anxious to\nescape from the universal blight. Over it all broods the silence of\nthe desert, drowsy with the hum of many bees winging their swift\nway to the secret feeding-places they know of, where mayflower and\nanemone hide under the heather, witness that forests grew here in\nthe long ago. In midsummer, when the purple is on the broom, a\nstrange pageant moves on the dim horizon, a shifting mirage of sea\nand shore, forest, lake, and islands lying high, with ships and\ncastles and spires of distant churches\u2014the witchery of the heath\nthat speaks in the tales and superstitions of its simple people.\nHigh in the blue soars the lark, singing its song of home and\nhope to its nesting mate. This is the heath which, denying to the\nhardest toil all but the barest living, has given of its poetry to\nthe Danish tongue some of its sweetest songs.\n\nBut in this busy world day-dreams must make way for the things that\nmake the day count, castles in the air to homes upon the soil. The\nheath had known such in the dim past. It had not always been a\ndesert. The numberless cairns that lie scattered over it, sometimes\nstrung out for miles as if marking the highways of the ancients,\nwhich they doubtless do, sometimes grouped where their villages\nstood, bear witness to it. Great battles account for their share,\nand some of them were fought in historic times. On Grathe Heath the\nyoung King Valdemar overcame his treacherous rival Svend. Alone\nand hunted, the beaten man sought refuge, Saxo tells us, behind a\nstump, where he was found and slain by one of the King\u2019s axemen. A\nchapel was built on the spot. More than seven centuries later (in\n1892) they dug there, and found the bones of a man with skull split\nin two.\n\nThe stump behind which the wretched Svend hid was probably the last\nrepresentative of great forests that grew where now is sterile\nmoor. In the bogs trunks of oak and fir are found lying as they\nfell centuries ago. The local names preserve the tradition, with\nhere and there patches of scrub oak that hug the ground close, to\nescape the blast from the North Sea. There is one such thicket\nnear the hamlet of Taulund\u2014the name itself tells of long-forgotten\ngroves\u2014and the story runs among the people yet that once squirrels\njumped from tree to tree without touching ground all the way from\nTaulund to Gjellerup church, a stretch of more than five miles to\nwhich the wild things of the woods have long been strangers. In the\nshelter of the old forests men dwelt through ages, and made the\nland yield them a living. Some cairns that have been explored span\nover more than a thousand years. They were built in the stone age,\nand served the people of the bronze and iron ages successively as\nburial-places, doubtless the same tribes who thus occupied their\nhomesteads from generation to generation. That they were farmers,\nnot nomads, is proved by the clear impression of grains of wheat\nand barley in their burial urns. The seeds strayed into the clay\nand were burned away, but the impression abides, and tells the\nstory.\n\nClear down to historic times there was a thrifty population in many\nof the now barren spots. But a change was slowly creeping over\nthe landscape. The country was torn by long and bloody wars. The\nbig men fought for the land and the little ones paid the score,\nas they always do. They were hunted from house and home. Next the\nwild hordes of the Holstein counts overran Jutland. Its towns were\nburned, the country laid waste. Great fires swept the forests.\nWhat ravaging armies had left was burned in the smelteries. In the\nsandy crust of the heath there is iron, and swords and spears were\nthe grim need of that day. The smelteries are only names now. They\nwent, but they took the forests with them, and where the ground was\ncleared the west wind broke through, and ruin followed fast. Last\nof all came the Black Death, and set its seal of desolation upon\nit all. When it had passed, the country was a huge graveyard. The\nheath had moved in. Rovers and smugglers found refuge there; honest\nfolk shunned it. Under the heather the old landmarks are sometimes\nfound yet, and deep ruts made by wheels that long since ceased to\nturn.\n\nIn the Eighteenth Century men began to think of reclamation. A\nthousand German colonists were called in and settled on the heath,\nbut it was stronger than they, and they drifted away until scarce\nhalf a hundred families remained. The Government tried its hand,\nbut there was no one who knew just how, and only discouragement\nresulted. Then came the war with Germany in 1864, that lost to\nDenmark a third of her territory. The country lay prostrate under\nthe crushing blow. But it rose above defeat and disaster, and once\nmore expectant eyes were turned toward the ancient domain that had\nslipped from its grasp. \u201cWhat was lost without must be won within\u201d\nbecame the national slogan. And this time the man for the task was\nat hand.\n\nEnrico Mylius Dalgas was by the accident of birth an Italian, his\nfather being the Danish consul in Naples; by descent a Frenchman;\nby choice and training a Dane, typical of the best in that people.\nHe came of the Huguenot stock that left France after the repeal of\nthe Edict of Nantes in 1685 and scattered over Europe, to the great\ngood of every land in which it settled. They had been tillers of\nthe soil from the beginning, and at least two of the family, who\nfound homes in Denmark, made in their day notable contributions to\nthe cause of advanced, sensible husbandry. Enrico\u2019s father, though\na merchant, had an open eye for the interests which in later years\nclaimed the son\u2019s life-work. In the diary of a journey through\nSweden he makes indignant comment upon the reckless way in which\nthe people of that country dealt with their forests. That he was\nalso a man of resolution is shown by an incident of the time when\nJew-baiting was having its sorry day in Denmark. An innkeeper\nmistook the dark-skinned little man for a Jew, and set before him\na spoiled ham, retorting contemptuously, when protest was made,\nthat it was \u201cgood enough for a Sheeny.\u201d Without further parley\nMr. Dalgas seized the hot ham by its shank and beat the fellow\nwith it till he cried for mercy. The son tells of the first school\nhe attended, when he was but five years old. It was kept by the\nwidow of one of Napoleon\u2019s generals, a militant lady who every\nmorning marshalled the school, a Lilliputian army with the teachers\nflanking the line like beardless sergeants in stays and petticoats,\nand distributed rewards and punishments as the great Emperor was\nwont to do after a battle. For the dunces there was a corner strewn\nwith dried peas on which they were made to kneel with long-eared\ndonkey caps adorning their luckless heads. Very likely it was after\nan insult of this kind that Enrico decided to elope to America with\nhis baby sister. They were found down by the harbor bargaining\nwith some fishermen to take them over to Capri _en route_ for the\nland of freedom. The elder Dalgas died while the children were yet\nlittle, and the widow went back to Denmark to bring up her boys\nthere.\n\nThey were poor, and the change from the genial skies of sunny Italy\nto the bleak North did not make it any easier for them. Enrico\u2019s\nteacher saw it, and gave him his overcoat to be made over. But\nthe boys spotted it and squared accounts with their teacher by\nsnowballing the wearer of the big green plaid until he was glad to\nleave it at home, and go without. He was in the military school\nwhen war broke out with Germany in 1848. Both of his brothers\nvolunteered, and fell in battle. Enrico was ordered out as\nlieutenant, and put on the shoulder-straps joyfully, to the great\nscandal of his godfather in Milan, who sympathized with the German\ncause. When the young soldier refused to resign he not only cut him\noff in his will, but took away a pension of four hundred kroner\nhe had given his mother in her widowhood. If he had thoughts of\nbringing them over by such means, he found out his mistake. Mother\nand son were made of sterner stuff. Dalgas fought twice for his\ncountry, the last time in 1864, as a captain of engineers.\n\nIt was no ordinary class, the one of 1851 that resumed its studies\nin the military high school. Two of the students did not answer\nroll-call; their names were written among the nation\u2019s heroic dead.\nSome had scars and wore the cross for valor in battle. All were\nfirst lieutenants, to be graduated as captains. Dalgas had himself\ntransferred from the artillery to the engineers, and was detailed\nas road inspector. So the opportunity of his life came to him.\n\nThere were few railways in those days; the highways were still the\ngreat arteries of traffic. Dalgas built roads that crossed the\nheath, and he learned to know it and the strong and independent,\nif narrow, people who clung to it with such a tenacious grip. He\nhad a natural liking for practical geology and for the chemistry\nof the soil, and the deep cuts which his roads sometimes made gave\nhim the best of chances for following his bent. The heath lay as\nan open book before him, and he studied it with delight. He found\nthe traces of the old forests, and noted their extent. Occasionally\nthe pickaxe uncovered peat deposits of unsuspected depth and\nvalue. Sometimes the line led across the lean fields, and damages\nhad to be discussed and assessed. He learned the point of view\nof the heath farmer, sympathized with his struggles, and gained\nhis confidence. Best of all, he found a man of his own mind, a\nlawyer by the name of Morville, himself a descendant of the exiled\nHuguenots. It is not a little curious that when the way was cleared\nfor the Heath Society\u2019s great work, in its formal organization with\nM. Mourier-Petersen, a large landowner, as their associate in its\nmanagement, the three men who for a quarter of a century planned\nthe work and marked out the groove in which it was to run were\nall of that strong stock which is by no means the most common in\nDenmark.\n\nWith his lawyer friend Captain Dalgas tramped the heath far and\nwide for ten years. Then their talks had matured a plan. Dalgas\nwrote to the Copenhagen newspapers that the heath could be\nreclaimed, and suggested that it should be done by the State. They\nlaughed at him. \u201cNothing better could have happened,\u201d he said in\nafter years, \u201cfor it made us turn to the people themselves, and\nthat was the road to success, though we did not know it.\u201d In the\nspring of 1866 a hundred men, little and big landowners most of\nthem, met at his call, and organized the Heath Society[11] with the\nobject of reclaiming the moor. Dalgas became its managing director.\n\nTo restore to the treeless waste its forest growth was the\nfundamental idea, for until that was done nothing but the heather\ncould grow there. The west wind would not let it. But the heath\nfarmer shook his head. It would cost too much, and give too little\nback. What he needed was water and marl. Could the captain help\nthem to these?\u2014that was another matter. The little streams that\nfound their way into the heath and lost it there, dire need had\ntaught them to turn to use in their fields; not a drop escaped. But\nthe river that ran between deep banks was beyond their reach. Could\nhe show them how to harness that? Dalgas saw their point. \u201cWe are\nworking, not for the dead soil, but for the living men who find\nhomes upon it,\u201d he told his associates, and tree planting was put\naside for the time. They turned canal diggers instead. Irrigation\nbecame their aim and task; the engineer was in his right place.\nThe water was raised from the stream and led out upon the moor,\nand presently grass grew in the sand which the wiry stems of the\nheather had clutched so long. Green meadows lined the water-runs,\nand fragrant haystacks rose. To the lean sheep was added a cow,\nthen two. The farmer laid by a little, and took in more land\nfor cultivation. That meant breaking the heath. Also, it meant\nmarl. The heath is lime-poor; marl is lime in the exact form in\nwhich it best fits that sandy soil. It was known to exist in some\nfavored spots, but the poor heath farmer could not bring it from a\ndistance. So the marl borer went with the canal digger. Into every\nacre he drove his auger, and mapped out his discoveries. At last\naccounts he had found marl in more than seventeen hundred places,\nand he is not done yet. Where there was none, Dalgas\u2019s Society\nbuilt portable railways into the moor far enough to bring it to\nnearly every farmer\u2019s door.\n\nIt was as if a magic wand had been waved over the heath. With\nwater and marl, the means were at hand for fighting it and winning\nout. Heads that had drooped in discouragement were raised. The\ncattle keep increased, and with it came the farmer\u2019s wealth. Marl\nchanges the character of the heath soil; with manure to fertilize\nit there was no reason why it should not grow crops\u2014none, except\nthe withering blast of the west wind. The time for Dalgas to preach\ntree planting had come.\n\nWhile the canal digger and marl seeker were at work, there had been\nneighborhood meetings and talks at which Captain Dalgas did the\ntalking. When he spoke the heath boer listened, for he had learned\nto look upon him as one of them. He wore no gold lace. A plain man\nin every day gray tweeds, with his trousers tucked into his boots,\nhe spoke to plain people of things that concerned them vitally, and\nin a way they could understand. So when he told them that the heath\nhad once been forest-clad, at least a large part of it, and pointed\nthem to the proofs, and that the woods could be made to grow again\nto give them timber and shelter and crops, they gave heed. It was\nworth trying at any rate. The shelter was the immediate thing. They\nbegan planting hedges about their homesteads; not always wisely,\nfor it is not every tree that will grow in the heath. The wind\nwhipped and wore them, the ahl cramped their roots, and they died.\nThe ahl is the rusty-red crust that forms under the heather in the\ncourse of the ages where the desert rules. Sometimes it is a loose\nsandstone formation; sometimes it carries as much as twenty per\ncent of iron that is absorbed from the upper layers of the sand. In\nany case, it must be broken through; no tree root can do it. The\nahl, the poverty of the sand, and the wind, together make the \u201cevil\ngenius\u201d of the heath that had won until then in the century-old\nfight with man. But this time he had backing, and was not minded to\ngive up. The Heath Society was there to counsel, to aid. And soon\nthe hedges took hold, and gardens grew in their shelter. There is\nhardly a farm in all west Jutland to-day that has not one, even if\nthe moor waits just beyond the gate.\n\nOut in the desert the Society had made a beginning with plantations\nof Norway spruce. They took root, but the heather soon overwhelmed\nthe young plants. Not without a fight would this enemy let go its\ngrip upon the land. It had smothered the hardy Scotch pine in days\npast, and now the spruce was in peril. Searching high and low for\nsomething that would grow fast and grow green, Dalgas and his\nassociates planted dwarf pine with the spruce. Strangely, it not\nonly grew itself, but proved to be a real nurse for the other. The\nspruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together\u2014for a\nwhile. Then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to\nsmother it. The spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best\nlittle more than a shrub. The croaker raised his voice: the black\nheath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any\none, then or ever.\n\nHe had not reckoned with Dalgas. The captain of engineers could use\nthe axe as well as the spade. He cut the dwarf pine out wherever\nthe spruce had got its grip, and gave it light and air. And it grew\nbig and beautiful. The Heath Society has now over nineteen hundred\nplantations that cover nearly a hundred thousand acres, and the\nState and private individuals, inspired by the example it set, have\nplanted almost as large an area. The ghost of the heath has been\nlaid for all time.\n\nGo now across the heath and see the change forty years have\nwrought. You shall seek in vain the lonely shepherd with his\nstocking. The stocking has grown into an organized industry. In\ngrandfather\u2019s day the farmer and his household \u201cknitted for the\ntaxes\u201d; if all hands made enough in the twelvemonth to pay the\ntax-gatherer, they had done well. Last year the single county of\nHammerum, of which more below, sold machine-made underwear to the\nvalue of over a million and a half kroner. The sheep are there,\nbut no longer lean; no more the ling-thatched hut, but prosperous\nfarms backed by thrifty groves, with hollyhock and marigold in the\ndooryards, heaps of gray marl in the fields, tiny rivulets of water\nsinging the doom of the heath in the sand; for where it comes the\nheather moves out. A resolute, thrifty peasantry looks hopefully\nforward. Not all of the heath is conquered yet. Roughly speaking,\nthirty-three hundred square miles of heath confronted Dalgas in\n1866. Just about a thousand remain for those who come after to\nwrestle with; but already voices are raised pleading that some of\nit be preserved untouched for its natural beauty, while yet it is\ntime.\n\nMeanwhile the plow goes over fresh acres every year\u2014once, twice,\nthen a deeper plowing, this time to break the stony crust, and the\nheath is ready for its human mission. From the Society\u2019s nurseries\nthat are scattered through the country come thousands of tiny\ntrees, and are set out in the furrows, two of the spruce for each\ndwarf pine till the nurse has done her work. Then she is turned\ninto charcoal, into tar, and a score of other things of use. The\nmen who do the planting in summer find chopping to do in winter\nin the older plantations, at good wages. Money is flowing into\nthe moor in the wake of the water and the marl. Roads are being\nmade, and every day the mail-carrier comes. In the olden time a\nstranger straying into the heath often brought the first news of\nthe world without for weeks together. Game is coming, too,\u2014roebuck\nand deer,\u2014in the young forests. The climate itself is changing;\nmore rain falls in midsummer, when it is needed. The sand-blast has\nbeen checked, the power of the west wind broken. The shrivelled\nsoil once more takes up and holds the rains, and the streams will\ndeepen, fish leap in them as of yore. Groves of beech and oak are\nspringing up in the shelter of their hardier evergreen kin. \u201cMake\nthe land furry,\u201d Dalgas said, with prophetic eye beholding great\nforests taking the place of sand and heather, and in his lifetime\nthe change was wrought that is transforming the barren moor into\nthe home-land of a prosperous people.\n\nTo the most unlikely of places, through the very prison doors,\nhis gospel of hope has made its way. For the last dozen years the\nlife prisoners in the Horsens penitentiary have been employed in\nbreaking and reforesting the heath, and their keepers report that\nthe effect upon them of the hard work in the open has been to\nnotably cheer and brighten them. The discipline has been excellent.\nThere have been few attempts at escape, and they have come to\nnothing through the vigilance of the other prisoners.\n\nWhile the population in the rest of Denmark is about stationary, in\nwest Jutland it grows apace. The case of Sk\u00e5phus farm in the parish\nof Sunds shows how this happens. Prior to 1870 this farm of three\nthousand acres was rated the \u201cbiggest and poorest\u201d in Denmark. Last\nyear it had dwindled to three hundred and fifty acres, but upon\nits old land thirty-three homesteads had risen that kept between\nthem sixty-two horses and two hundred and fifty-two cows, beside\nthe sheep, and the manor farm was worth twice as much as before.\nThe town of Herning, sometimes called \u201cthe Star of the Heath,\u201d is\nthe seat of Hammerum county, once the baldest and most miserable on\nthe Danish mainland. In 1841 twenty-one persons lived in Herning.\nTo-day there are more than six thousand in a town with handsome\nbuildings, gas, electric lighting, and paved streets. The heath is\nhalf a dozen miles away. And this is not the result of any special\nor forced industry, but the natural, healthy growth of a centre for\nan army of industrious men and women winning back the land of their\nfathers by patient toil. All through the landscape one sees from\nthe train the black giving way to the green. Churches rear their\nwhite gables; bells that have been silent since the Black Death\nstalked through the land once more call the people to worship on\nthe old sites. More churches were built in the reign of \u201cthe good\nKing Christian,\u201d who has just been gathered to his fathers, than in\nall the centuries since the day of the Valdemars.\n\nBog cultivation is the Heath Society\u2019s youngest child. The heath\nis full of peat-bogs that only need the sand, so plentiful on the\nuplands, to make their soil as good as the best, the muck of the\nbog being all plant food, and they have a surplus of water to give\nin exchange. With hope the keynote of it all, the State has taken\nup the herculean task of keeping down the moving sands of the North\nSea coast. All along it is a range of dunes that in the fierce\nstorms of that region may change shape and place in a single night.\nThe \u201csand flight\u201d at times reached miles inland, and threatened to\nbury the farmer\u2019s acres past recovery. Austrian fir and dwarf pine\nnow grow upon the white range, helping alike to keep down the sand\nand to bar out the blast.\n\nWith this exception, the great change has been, is being, wrought\nby the people themselves. It was for their good, in the apathy\nthat followed 1864, that it should be so, and Dalgas saw it. The\nState aids the man who plants ten acres or more, and assumes\nthe obligation to preserve the forest intact; the Heath Society\nsells him plants at half-price, and helps him with its advice. It\ndisposes annually of over thirteen million young trees. The people\ndo the rest, and back the Society with their support. The Danish\npeasant has learned the value of co\u00f6peration since he turned dairy\nfarmer, and associations for irrigation, for tree planting, and\ngarden planting are everywhere. They even reach across the ocean.\nThis year a call was issued to sons of the old soil, who have found\na new home in America, to join in planting a Danish-American forest\nin the desert where hill and heather hide a silvery lake in their\ndeep shadows and returning wanderers may rest and dream of the long\nago.\n\n[Illustration: THE HEATH TRANSFORMED IN TWENTY-ONE YEARS]\n\nSoldier though he was, Enrico Dalgas\u2019s pick and spade brigade won\ngreater victories for Denmark than her armies in two wars. He\nliterally \u201cwon for his country within what she had lost without.\u201d A\nnatural organizer, a hard worker who found his greatest joy in his\ndaily tasks, a fearless and lucid writer who yet knew how to keep\nhis cause out of the rancorous politics that often enough seemed\nto mistake partisanship for patriotism, he was the most modest of\nmen. Praise he always passed up to others. At the \u201csilver wedding\u201d\nof the Society he founded they toasted him jubilantly, but he sat\nquiet a long time. When at last he arose, it was to make this\ncharacteristic little speech:\n\n\u201cI thank you very much. His Excellency the Minister of the\nInterior, who is present here, will see from this how much you\nthink of me, and possibly my recommendation that the State\nmake a larger contribution to the Heath Society\u2019s treasury may\nthereby acquire greater weight with him. I drink to an increased\nappropriation.\u201d\n\nOn the heath Dalgas was prophet, prince, and friend of the people.\nIn the crowds that flocked about his bier homespun elbowed gold\nlace in the grief of a common loss. Boughs of the fragrant spruce\ndecked his coffin, the gift of the heath to the memory of him who\nset it free.\n\nTo Dalgas apply the words of the seer with which he himself\ncharacterized the Society that was the child of his heart and\nbrain: \u201cThe good men are those who plant and water,\u201d for they add\nto the happiness of mankind.\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[11] Danske Hedeselskab.\n\n\n\n\nKING CHRISTIAN IV\n\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      King Christian stood by loft - y mast In mist and\n      smoke; His sword was ham - mer - ing so fast, Thro\u2019\n      Goth -ic helm and brain it passed; Then sank each hos-tile\n      hulk and mast. In mist and smoke. \u201cFly,\u201d\n      shout-ed they, \u201cfly, he who can! Who braves of Denmark\u2019s\n      Christ- i -an, Who braves of Denmark\u2019s Christian The stroke?\u201d]\n\nDeep in the beech-woods between Copenhagen and Elsinore, upon\nthe shore of a limpid lake, stands Frederiksborg, one of the\nmost beautiful castles in Europe. In its chapel the Danish kings\nwere crowned for two centuries, and here was born on April 12,\n1577, King Christian of the Danish national hymn which Longfellow\ntranslated into our tongue. No Danish ruler since the days of the\ngreat Valdemars made such a mark upon his time; none lives as he\nin the imagination of the people. He led armies to war and won\nand lost battles; indeed, he lost more than he won on land when\nmatched against the great generals of that fighting era. On the sea\nhe sailed his own ship and was the captain of his own fleet, and\nthere he had no peer. He made laws in the days of peace and reigned\nover a happy, prosperous land. In his old age misfortune in which\nhe had no share overwhelmed Denmark, but he was ever greatest in\nadversity, and his courage saved the country from ruin. The great\ndid not love him overmuch; but to the plain people he was ever,\nwith all his failings, which were the failings of his day, a great,\nappealing figure, and lives in their hearts, not merely in the dry\npages of musty books.\n\nHe was eleven years old when his father died, and until he came of\nage the country was governed by a council of happily most able men\nwho, with his mother, gave him such a schooling as few kings have\nhad. He not only became proficient in the languages, living and\ndead, and in mathematics which he put to such practical use that\nhe was among the greatest of architects and ship-builders; he was\nthe best all-round athlete among his fellows as well, and there was\nsome sense in the tradition that survives to this day that whoever\nwas touched by him in wrath did not live long, for he was very tall\nwith a big, strong body, and when he struck, he struck hard. He was\na dauntless sailor who knew as much about sailing a ship as any one\nof his captains, and much more about building it. Danger appealed\nto him always. When the spire on the great cathedral in Copenhagen\nthreatened to fall, he was the one who went up in it alone and gave\norders where and how to brace it.\n\nAs he grew, he sat in the council of state, learning kingcraft, and\nshowed there the hard-headed sense of fairness and justice that\nwent with him through life. He was hardly fourteen when the case\nof three brothers of the powerful Friis family came before the\ncouncil. They had attacked another young nobleman in the street,\nstruck off one of his hands, and crippled the other. Because of\ntheir influence, the council was for being lenient, atrocious as\nthe crime was. A fine was deemed sufficient. The young prince\nasked if there were not some law covering the case with severer\npunishment, and was told that in the province of Skaane there was\nsuch a law that applied to serfs. But the assault had not been\ncommitted in Skaane, and these were high noblemen.\n\n\u201cAll the worse for them,\u201d said the prince. \u201cIs then a serf in\nSkaane to have more rights under the law than a nobleman in the\nrest of Denmark? Let the law for the serf be theirs.\u201d And the\njudgment stood.\n\nHe had barely attained his majority, when the young king was called\nupon to judge between another great noble and a widow whom he sued\nfor 9000 daler, money he claimed to have lent to her husband. In\nproof he laid before the judges two bonds bearing the signatures of\nhusband and wife. The widow denounced them as forgeries, but the\ncourt decided that she must pay. She went straight to the King with\nher story, assuring him that she had never heard of the debt. The\nKing sent for the bonds and upon close scrutiny discovered that one\nof them was on paper bearing the water-mark of a mill that was not\nbuilt till two years after the date written in the bond. The noble\nwas arrested and the search of his house brought to light several\nsimilar documents waiting their turn. He went to the scaffold. His\nrank only aggravated his offence in the eyes of the King. No wonder\nthe fame of this judge spread quickly through the land.\n\nA dozen contented years he reigned in peace, doing justice between\nman and man at home. Then the curse of his house gripped him. In\ntwo centuries, since the brief union between the three Scandinavian\nkingdoms was broken by the secession of Sweden, only two of sixteen\nkings in either country had gone to their rest without ripping\nup the old feud. It was now Christian\u2019s turn. The pretext was of\nlittle account: there was always cause enough. Gustav Adolf, whose\nfather was then on the throne of Sweden, said in after years that\nthere was no one he had such hearty admiration for and whose friend\nhe would like so well to be as Christian IV: \u201cThe mischief is that\nwe are neighbors.\u201d King Christian crossed over into Sweden and laid\nsiege to the strong fortress of Kalmar where he first saw actual\nwar and showed himself a doughty campaigner of intrepid courage.\nIt came near costing him his life when a cannoneer with whom he\nhad often talked on his rounds deserted to the enemy and picked\nthe King out as his especial target. Twice he killed an officer\nattending upon him, but the King he never hit. It is almost a\npleasure to record that when he tried it again, in another fight,\nChristian caught him and dealt with him as the traitor he was,\nthough the rough justice of those days is not pleasant to dwell on.\nThe besieged tried to create a diversion by sneaking into camp at\nnight and burying wax images of the King and his generals in the\nearth, where they were afterwards found and spread consternation\nthrough the army; for such things were believed to be wrought by\nwitchcraft and to bring bad luck to those whom they represented.\n\nHowever, neither the real courage of the defenders, nor their\ndallying with the black art, helped them any. King Christian\nstormed the town at the head of his army and took it. The\nburgomaster hid in the church, disguised as a priest, and pretended\nto be shriving some women when the crash came, but it did not save\nhim. When the Swedish king came with a host twice the size of his\nown, there was a battle royal, but Christian drove him off and laid\nsiege to the castle where dissension presently arose between the\ngarrison and its commander who was for surrendering. In the midst\nof their noisy quarrel, King Christian was discovered standing upon\nthe wall, calmly looking on. He had climbed up alone on a rope\nladder which the sentinel let down at his bidding. At the sight\nthey gave it up and opened the gates, and the King wrote home,\nproudly dating his letter from \u201cour castle Kalmar.\u201d\n\nIts loss so angered the Swedish king who was old and sick, that he\nchallenged Christian to single combat, without armor. The letters\nthat passed between them were hardly kingly. King Christian wrote\nthat he had other things to do: \u201cBetter catch a doctor, old man,\nand have your head-piece looked after.\u201d Helpless anger killed Karl,\nand Gustav Adolf, of whom the world was presently to hear, took the\ncommand and the crown. After that Christian had a harder road to\nhoe.\n\nA foretaste of it came to him when he tried to surprise the\nfortress of Gullberg near the present G\u00f6taborg. Its commander\nwas wounded early in the fight, but his wife who took his place\nmore than filled it. She and her women poured boiling lye upon\nthe attacking Danes until they lay \u201clike scalded pigs\u201d under the\nwalls. Their leader knew when he had enough and made off in haste,\nwith the lady commandant calling after him, \u201cYou were a little\nunexpected for breakfast, but come back for dinner and we will\nreceive you properly.\u201d She would not even let them take their\ndead away. \u201cSince God gave us luck to kill them,\u201d she said, \u201cwe\nwill manage to bury them too.\u201d They were very pious days after\ntheir own fashion, and God was much on the lips of his servants.\nTroubles rarely come singly. Soon after, King Christian met the\nenemy unexpectedly and was so badly beaten that for the second time\nhe had to run for it, though he held out till nearly all his men\nhad fallen. His horse got mired in a swamp with the pursuers close\nbehind. The gay and wealthy Sir Christen Barnekow, who had been\nlast on the field, passed him there, and at once got down and gave\nhim his horse. It meant giving up his life, and when Sir Christen\ncould no longer follow the fleeing King he sat down on a rock with\nthe words, \u201cI give the King my horse, the enemy my life, and God my\nsoul.\u201d The rock is there yet and the country folk believe that the\nred spots in the granite are Christen Barnekow\u2019s blood which all\nthe years have not availed to wash out.\n\nThey tired of fighting at last and made it up. Sweden paid Denmark\na million daler; for the rest, things stayed as they had been\nbefore. King Christian had shown himself no mean fighter, but the\nsenseless sacking and burning of town and country that was an ugly\npart of those days\u2019 warfare went against his grain, and he tried to\npersuade the Swedes to agree to leave that out in future. Gustav\nAdolf had not yet grown into the man he afterward became. \u201cAs to\nthe burning,\u201d was his reply, \u201cseeing that it is the usage of war,\nand we enemies, why we will each have to do the best we can,\u201d which\nmeant the worst. Had the two kings, who had much in common, got\ntogether in the years of peace that followed, much misery might\nhave been saved Denmark, and a black page of history might read\nvery differently. For those were the days of the Thirty Years\u2019 War,\nin which together they might have dictated peace to harassed Europe.\n\nNow King Christian\u2019s ambition, his piety, for he was a sincerely\nreligious man, as well as his jealousy of his younger rival and of\nthe growing power of Sweden\u2014so mixed are human motives\u2014made him\nyield to the entreaties of the hard-pressed Protestant princes to\ntake up alone their cause against the German Emperor. He had tried\nfor half a dozen years to make peace between them. At last he drew\nthe sword and went down to force it. After a year of fighting Tilly\nand Wallenstein, the Emperor\u2019s great generals, he met the former\nin a decisive battle at Lutter-am-Baremberg. King Christian\u2019s army\nwas beaten and put to rout. He himself fled bareheaded through the\nforests of the Hartz Mountains, pursued by the enemy\u2019s horsemen.\nIt was hardly necessary for the Emperor to make him promise as\nthe price of peace to keep out of German affairs thenceforth. His\nallies had left him to fight it out alone. All their fine speeches\nwent for nothing when it came to the test, and King Christian rode\nback to Denmark, a sadder and wiser man. It was left to Gustav\nAdolf, after all, to teach the German generals the lesson they\nneeded.\n\nIn the years of peace before that unhappy war, Danish trade and\nDanish culture had blossomed exceedingly, thanks to the wisdom,\nthe clever management, and untiring industry of the King. He\nbuilt factories, cloth-mills, silk-mills, paper-mills, dammed the\nNorth Sea out from the rich marshlands with great dikes, taught\nthe farmers profitable ways of tilling their fields; for he was a\nwondrous manager for whom nothing was too little and nothing too\nbig. He kept minute account of his children\u2019s socks and little\nshirts, and found ways of providing money for his war-ships and\nfor countless building schemes he had in hand both in Denmark and\nNorway. For many of them he himself drew the plans. Wherever one\ngoes to this day, his monogram, which heads this story, stares\nat him from the splendid buildings he erected. The Bourse in\nCopenhagen and the Round Tower, the beautiful palace of Rosenborg,\na sort of miniature of his beloved Frederiksborg which also he\nrebuilt on a more magnificent scale\u2014these are among his works\nwhich every traveller in the North knows. He built more cities\nand strongholds than those who went before or came after him for\ncenturies. Christiania and Christiansand in Norway bear his name.\nHe laid out a whole quarter of Copenhagen for his sailors, and\nthe quaint little houses still serve that purpose. Regentsen, a\ndormitory for poor students at the university, was built by him.\nHe created seven new chairs of learning and saw to it that all\nthe professors got better pay. He ferreted out and dismissed in\ndisgrace all the grafting officials in Norway, and administered\njustice with an even hand. At the same time he burned witches\nwithout end, or let it be done for their souls\u2019 sake. That was\nthe way of his time; and when he needed fireworks for his son\u2019s\nwedding (he made them himself, too), he sent around to all the old\ncloisters and cathedral churches for the old parchments they had.\nHeaven only knows what treasures that can never be replaced went up\nin fire and smoke for that one night\u2019s fun.\n\nKing Christian founded a score of big trading companies to\nexploit the East, taking care that their ships should have their\nbulwarks pierced for at least six guns, so that they might serve\nas war-ships in time of need. He sent one expedition after another\nto the waters of Greenland in search of the Northwest Passage.\nIt was on the fourth of these, in 1619, that Jens Munk with two\nships and sixty-four sailors was caught in the ice of Hudson Bay\nand compelled to winter there. One after another the crew died of\nhunger and scurvy. When Jens Munk himself crept out from what he\nhad thought his death-bed, he found only two of them all alive.\nTogether they burrowed in the snow, digging for roots until spring\ncame when they managed to make their way down to Bergen in the\nsmallest of the two vessels. Jens Munk had deserved a better end\nthan he got. He spun his yarns so persistently at court that he\ngot to be a tiresome bore, and at last one day the King told him\nthat he had no time to listen to him. Whereat the veteran took\ngreat umbrage and, slapping his sword, let the King know that he\nhad served him well and was entitled to better treatment. Christian\nsnatched the weapon in anger and struck him with the scabbard. The\nsailor never got over it. \u201cHe withered away and died,\u201d says the\ntradition. It was the old superstition; but whether that killed him\nor not, the King lost a good man in Jens Munk.\n\nHe was not averse to hearing the truth, though, when boldly put.\nWhen Ole Vind, a popular preacher, offended some of the nobles\nby his plain speech and they complained to the King, he bade him\nto the court and told him to preach the same sermon over. Master\nVind was game and the truths he told went straight home, for he\nknew well where the shoe pinched. But King Christian promptly made\nhim court preacher. \u201cHe is the kind we need here,\u201d he said. There\nwas never a day that the King did not devoutly read his Bible,\nand he was determined that everybody should read it the same way.\nThe result was a kind of Puritanism that filled the churches and\ncompelled the employment of men to go around with long sticks to\nrap the people on the head when they fell asleep. Christian the\nFourth was not the first ruler who has tried to herd men into\nheaven by battalions. But his people would have gladly gone in the\nfire for him. He was their friend. When on his tramps, as likely\nas not he would come home sitting beside some peasant on his\nload of truck, and would step off at the palace gate with a \u201cSo\nlong, thanks for good company!\u201d He was everywhere, interested in\neverything. In his walking-stick he carried a foot-rule, a level,\nand other tools, and would stop at the bench of a workman in the\nnavy-yard and test his work to see how well he was doing it. \u201cI\ncan lie down and sleep in any hut in the land,\u201d was his contented\nboast. And he would have been safe anywhere.\n\nGustav Adolf was a wise and generous foe. While he lived he refused\nto listen to proposals for the partition of Denmark after King\nChristian\u2019s defeat in Germany. He knew well that she was a barrier\nagainst the ambition of the German princes and that, once she was\nout of the way, Sweden\u2019s turn would come next. But when he had\nfallen on the battle-field of L\u00fctzen, and his generals, following\nin his footsteps, had achieved fame and lands and the freedom\nof worship for which he gave his life, the Swedish statesmen\nlost their heads and dreamed of the erection of a great northern\nProtestant state by the conquest of Denmark and Norway, to balance\nthe power of the German empire. Without warning or declaration of\nwar a great army was thrown into the Danish peninsula from the\nsouth. Another advanced from Sweden upon the eastern provinces, and\na fleet hired in Holland for Swedish money came through the North\nSea to help them over to the Danish islands. If the two armies\nmet, Denmark was lost. In Swedish harbors a still bigger fleet was\nfitting out for the Baltic.\n\nKing Christian was well up in the sixties, worn with the tireless\nactivities of a long reign; but once more he proved himself greater\nthan adversity. When the evil tidings reached him, in the midst\nof profound peace, the enemy was already within the gates. The\ncountry lay prostrate. The name of Torstenson, the Swedish general,\nspread terror wherever it was heard. In the German campaigns he had\nbeen known as the \u201cSwedish Lightning.\u201d Beset on every side, never\nhad Denmark\u2019s need been greater. The one man who did not lose his\nhead was her king. By his personal example he put heart into the\npeople and shamed the cowardly nobles. He borrowed money wherever\nhe could, sent his own silver to the mint, crowded the work in the\nnavy-yard by night and by day, gathered an army, and hurried with\nit to the Sounds where the enemy might cross. When the first ships\nwere ready he sailed around the Skaw to meet the Dutch hirelings.\n\u201cI am old and stiff,\u201d he said, \u201cand no good any more to fight on\nland. But I can manage the ships.\u201d\n\nAnd he did. He met the Dutchmen in the North Sea, in under the\nDanish coast, and whipped them, almost single-handed, for his own\nship _Trefoldigheden_ was for a long while the only one that wind\nand tide would let come up with them. That done, he left one of his\ncaptains to watch lest they come out from among the islands where\ntheir ships of shallower draught had sought refuge, and sailed for\nCopenhagen. Everything that could carry sail was ready for him\nby that time; also the news that the Swedish fleet of forty-six\nfighting ships under Klas Fleming had sailed for the coast of\nHolstein to take on board Torstenson\u2019s army.\n\nKing Christian lost no time. He hoisted his flag on\n_Trefoldigheden_ and made after them with thirty-nine ships, vowing\nthat he would win this fight or die. At Kolberger Heide, the water\noutside the Fjord of Kiel, he caught up with them and attacked at\nonce. The battle that then ensued is the one of which the poet\nsings and with which the name of Christian IV is forever linked.\n\nAt the outset the Danish fleet was in great peril. The Swedes\nfought gallantly as was their wont, and they were three or four\nagainst one, for most of the King\u2019s ships came up slowly, some of\nthem purposely, so it seems. The King said after the battle of\ncertain of his captains, \u201cThey used me as a screen between them\nand the enemy.\u201d His own ship and that of his chief admiral\u2019s bore\nthe brunt of the battle for a long time. _Trefoldigheden_ fired\n315 shots during the engagement, and at one time had four hostile,\nships clustering about her. King Christian was on the quarter-deck\nwhen a cannon-ball shivered the bulwark and one of his guns,\nthrowing a shower of splintered iron and wood over him and those\nnear him, killing and wounding twelve of the crew. The King himself\nfell, stunned and wounded in twenty-three places. His right eye was\nknocked out, two of his teeth, and his left ear hung in shreds.\n\nThe cry was raised that the King was dead and panic spread on\nboard. The story has it that a sailor was sent aloft to strike the\nflag but purposely entangled it in the rigging so that it could not\nfall; he could not bear to see the King\u2019s ship strike its colors.\nIn the midst of the tumult the aged monarch rose to his feet, torn\nand covered with blood. \u201cI live yet,\u201d he cried, \u201cand God has left\nme strength to fight on for my country. Let every man do his duty.\u201d\nLeaning on his sword, he led the fight until darkness fell and the\nbattle was won. Denmark was saved. The danger of an invasion was\naverted. In the palace of Rosenborg the priceless treasure they\nshow to visitors is the linen cloth, all blood-stained, that bound\nthe King\u2019s face as he fought and won his last and biggest fight\nthat day.\n\n[Illustration: CHRISTIAN IV AT THE BATTLE OF KOLBERGER HEIDE]\n\nHalf blind, his body black and blue and sore from many bruises,\nKing Christian yet refused to sail for Copenhagen to have his\nwounds attended. Three weeks he lay watching the narrow inlet\nbehind which the beaten enemy was hiding, to destroy his ships\nwhen he came out. Then he gave over the command to another and\nhastened to the province of Skaane on the Swedish mainland, from\nwhich he expelled a hostile army. But when his back was turned, the\nmen he had set to watch fell asleep and let the Swedish admiral\nsteal out into the open. There he found and joined the Dutch ships\nthat had slipped around the Skaw during the rumpus. Together they\noverwhelmed the Danish fleet, being now three to one, and crushed\nit. The slothful admiral paid for it with his life, but the harm\nwas done. It was the last and heaviest blow. The old King sheathed\nhis sword and set his name to a peace that took from Denmark some\nof her ancient provinces, with the bitter sigh: \u201cGod knows I had\nno share in this,\u201d and he had not. Even at the last he appealed\nto the country to try the fortunes of war with him once more. The\npeople were willing, but the nobles wanted peace, \u201chowever God\nsend it,\u201d and he had to yield. The treaty was made at Br\u00f6msebro,\nwhere a bridge crossed the river dividing the two kingdoms. In\nthe middle of the river was an island and the negotiations were\ncarried on in a tent erected there, the French and the Dutch being\nthe arbitrators. The envoys of Sweden and Denmark sat on opposite\nsides of the boundary post where the line cut through, each on the\nsoil of his own country. So bitterly did they hate one another that\nthey did not speak but wrote their messages, though they could have\nshaken hands where they sat. Even that was too close quarters, and\nthey ended up by negotiating at second hand through the foreign\nambassadors, all at the same table, but each looking straight past\nthe other as if he were not there.\n\nAnother touch of comedy relieves the gloom of that heavy day. It\nwas the conquest of the S\u00e4rnadal, a mountain valley in Norway\njust over the Swedish frontier, by Pastor Buschovius who, Bible\nin hand, at the head of two hundred ski-men invaded and captured\nit one winter\u2019s day without a blow. He came over the snow-fields\ninto the valley that had not seen a preacher in many a long day,\nhad the church bells rung to summon the people, preached to them,\nmarried and christened them, and gave them communion. The simple\nmountaineers had hardly heard of the war and had nothing against\ntheir neighbors over the mountain. They joined Sweden then and\nthere at the request of the preacher, and they stayed Swedes too,\nfor in the final muster they were forgotten with their valley. Very\nlikely the treaty-makers did not know that it existed.\n\nKing Christian died four years later, in 1648, past the three score\nand ten allotted to man. He was not a great leader like Gustav\nAdolf, and he was very human in some of his failings. But he was a\nstrong man, a just king, and a father of his people who still cling\nto his memory with more than filial affection.\n\n\n\n\nGUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING\n\n\nThe city of Prague, the capital of Bohemia, went wild with\nexcitement one spring morning in the year 1618. The Protestant\nEstates of Germany had met there to protest against the aggressions\nof the Catholic League and the bad faith of the Emperor, who\nhad guaranteed freedom of worship in the land and had now sent\ntwo envoys to defy the meeting and declare it illegal. In the\nold castle they delivered their message and bade the convention\ndisperse; and the delegates, when they had heard, seized them and\ntheir clerk and threw them out of the window \u201cin good old Bohemian\nfashion.\u201d They fell seventy feet and escaped almost without a\nscratch, which fact was accepted by the Catholics of that strenuous\nday as proof of their miraculous preservation; by the Protestants\nas evidence that the devil ever takes care of his own.\n\nIt was the tiny spark that set Europe on fire. Out of it grew\nthe Thirty Years\u2019 War, the most terrible that ever scourged the\ncivilized world. When Catholic League and Evangelical Union first\nmustered their armies, Bohemia had a prosperous population of four\nmillion souls; when the war was over there were less than eight\nhundred thousand alive in that unhappy land, and the wolves that\nroamed its forests were scarcely more ferocious than the human\nstarvelings who skulked among the smoking ruins of burned towns and\nhamlets. Other states fared little better. Two centuries did not\nwipe out the blight of those awful years when rapine and murder,\ninspired by bigotry and hate, ran riot in the name of religion.\n\nIn the gloom and horror of it all a noble figure stands forth\nalone. It were almost worth the sufferings of a Thirty Years\u2019 War\nfor the world to have gained a Gustav Adolf. The \u201csnow-king\u201d the\nEmperor\u2019s generals named him when he first appeared on German soil\nat the head of his army of Northmen, and they prophesied that he\nwould speedily melt, once the southern sun shone upon his host.\nThey little knew the man. He went from victory to victory, less\nbecause he was the greatest general of his day than because he, and\nall his army with him, believed himself charged by the Almighty\nwith the defence of his country and of his faith. The Emperor had\nattacked both, the first by attempting to extend his dominion to\nthe Baltic; but Pommerania and the Baltic provinces were regarded\nby the Swedish ruler as the outworks of his kingdom; and Sweden was\nProtestant. Hence he drew the sword. \u201cOur brethren in the faith are\nsighing for deliverance from spiritual and bodily thraldom,\u201d he\nsaid to his people. \u201cPlease God, they shall not sigh long.\u201d That\nwas his warrant. Axel Oxenstjerna, his friend and right hand who\nlived to finish his work, said of him, \u201cHe felt himself impelled by\na mighty spirit which he was unable to resist.\u201d As warrior, king,\nand man, he was head and shoulders above his time. Gustav Adolf\nsaved religious liberty to the world. He paid the price with his\nlife, but he would have asked no better fate. A soldier of God,\nhe met a soldier\u2019s death on the field of battle, in the hour of\nvictory.\n\nA man of destiny he was to his people as to himself. Long years\nbefore his birth, upon the appearance of the comet of 1577, Tycho\nBrahe, the astronomer, who was deep in the occultism of his day,\nhad predicted that a prince would appear in Finland who would do\ngreat things in Germany and deliver the Protestant peoples from the\noppression of the popes, and the prophecy was applied to Gustav\nAdolf by his subjects all through his life. He was born on December\n9, 1594, old style, as they still reckon time in Russia. Very early\nhe showed the kind of stuff he was made of. When he was yet almost\na baby he was told that there were snakes in the park, and showed\nfight at once: \u201cGive me a stick and I will kill them.\u201d With the\nyears he grew into a handsome youth who read his books, knew his\nSeneca by heart, was fond of the poets and the great orators, and\nmastered eight languages, living and dead. At seventeen he buckled\non the sword and put the books away, but kept Xenophon as his\nfriend; for he was a military historian after his own heart. He was\nthen Duke of Finland.\n\nThe King, his father, was a stern but observant man who, seeing\nhis bent, threw him with soldiers to his heart\u2019s content, glad to\nhave it so, for it was a warlike age. From his tenth year he let\nhim sit in council with him and early delegated to him the duty of\nanswering ambassadors from foreign countries. The lad was the only\none who dared oppose the king when he was in a temper, and often he\nmade peace and healed wounds struck in anger. The people worshipped\nthe fair young prince, and his father, when he felt the palsy of\nold age and bodily infirmities creeping upon him and thought of\nhis unfinished tasks, would murmur as his eyes rested upon the\nbonny youth: \u201c_Ille faciet_\u2014He will do it.\u201d There is still in\nexistence a document in which he laid down to him his course as a\nsovereign. \u201cFirst of all,\u201d he writes, \u201cyou shall fear God and honor\nyour father and mother. Give your brothers and sisters brotherly\naffection; love your father\u2019s faithful servants and requite them\nafter their due. Be gracious to your subjects; punish evil and love\nthe good. Believe in men, but find out first what is in them. Hold\nby the law without respect of person.\u201d\n\nIt was good advice to a prince, and the king took it to heart. On\nthe docket of the Supreme Court at Stockholm is a letter written\nby Gustav Adolf to the judges and ordered by him to be entered\nthere, which tells them plainly that if any of them is found\nperverting justice to suit him, the King, or any one else, he will\nhave him flayed alive and his hide nailed to the judgment-seat,\nhis ears to the pillory! Not a nice way of talking to dignified\njudges, perhaps, but then the prescription was intended to suit the\npractice, if there was need.\n\nThe young king earned his spurs in a war with Denmark that came\nnear being his last as it was his first campaign. He and his\nhorsemen were surprised by the Danes on a winter\u2019s night as they\nwere warming themselves by a fire built of the pews in the Wittsj\u00f6\nchurch, and they cut their way through only after a desperate fight\non the frozen lake. The ice broke under the king\u2019s horse and he was\ngoing down when two of his men caught him in the nick of time. He\ngot away with the loss of his sword, his pistols, and his gloves.\n\u201cI will remember you with a crust that shall do for your bairns\ntoo,\u201d he promised one of his rescuers, a stout peasant lad, and he\nkept his word. Thomas Larss\u00f6n\u2019s descendants a generation ago still\ntilled the farm the King gave him. When the trouble with Denmark\nwas over for the time being, he settled old scores with Russia and\nPoland in a way that left Sweden mistress of the Baltic. In the\nPolish war he was wounded twice and was repeatedly in peril of his\nlife. Once he was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not\nbe removed, it ever after troubled him to wear armor. His officers\npleaded with him to spare himself, but his reply was that C\u00e6sar and\nAlexander did not skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he\nexpected his men to follow.\n\nIn this campaign he met the League\u2019s troops, sent to chase him back\nto his own so that Wallenstein, the leader of the imperial armies,\nmight be \u201cGeneral of the Baltic Sea,\u201d unmolested. \u201cGo to Poland,\u201d\nhe commanded one of his lieutenants, \u201cand drive the snow-king out;\nor else tell him that I shall come and do it myself.\u201d The proud\nsoldier never knew how near he came to entertaining the snow-king\nas his unwilling guest then. In a fight between his rear-guard and\nthe imperial army Gustav Adolf was disarmed and taken prisoner by\ntwo troopers. There was another prisoner who had kept his pistol.\nHe handed it to the King behind his back and with it he shot one\nof his captors and brained the other. For all that they nearly got\nhim. He saved himself only by wriggling out of his belt and leaving\nit in the hands of the enemy. Eight years he campaigned in Poland\nand Prussia, learning the arts of war. Then he was ready for his\nlife-work. He made a truce with Poland that freed his hands for a\nseason, and went home to Sweden.\n\nThat spring (1629) he laid before the Swedish Estates his plan\nof freeing the Protestants. To defend Sweden, he declared, was\nto defend her faith, and the Estates voted supplies for the\nwar. To gauge fully the splendid courage of the nation it must\nbe remembered that the whole kingdom, including Finland, had\na population of only a million and a half at the time and was\npreparing to attack the mighty Roman empire. In the first year of\nthe war the Swedish budget was thirteen millions of dollars, of\nwhich nine and a half went for armaments. The whole army which\nGustav Adolf led into Germany numbered only 14,000 soldiers, but\nit was made up of Swedish veterans led by men whose names were to\nbecome famous for all time, and welded together by an unshakable\nbelief in their commander, a rigid discipline and a religious\nenthusiasm that swayed master and men with a common impulse. Such a\ncombination has in all days proven irresistible.\n\nThe King\u2019s farewell to his people\u2014he was never to see Sweden\nagain\u2014moved a nation to tears. He spoke to the nobles, the clergy\nand to the people, admonishing them to stand together in the hard\nyears that were coming and gave them all into the keeping of God.\nThey stood on the beach and watched his ships sail into the sunset\nuntil they were swallowed up in glory. Then they went back home to\ntake up the burden that was their share. On the R\u00fcgen shore the\nKing knelt with his men and thanked God for having brought them\nsafe across the sea, then seized a spade, and himself turned the\nfirst sod in the making of a camp. \u201cWho prays well, fights well,\u201d\nhe said.\n\nHe was not exactly hospitably received. The old Duke of Pommerania\nwould have none of him, begged him to go away, and only when the\nKing pointed to his guns and hinted that he had keys well able to\nopen the gates of Stettin, his capital, did he give in and promise\nhelp. The other German princes, with one or two exceptions, were\nas cravenly short-sighted. They held meetings and denounced the\nEmperor and his lawless doings, but Gustav they would not help.\nThe princes of Brandenburg and of Saxony, the two Protestant\nElectors of the empire, were rather disposed to hinder him, if they\nmight, though Brandenburg was his brother-in-law. Only when the\nKing threatened to burn the city of Berlin over his head did he\nlisten. While he was yet laboring with them, recruiting his army\nand keeping it in practice by driving the enemy out of Pommerania,\nnews reached him of the fall of Magdeburg, the strongest city in\nnorthern Germany, that had of its own free will joined his cause.\n\nThe sacking of Magdeburg is one of the black deeds of history. In\na night the populous city was reduced to a heap of smoking ruins\nunder which twenty thousand men, women, and children lay buried.\nNot since the fall of Jerusalem, said Pappenheim, Tilly\u2019s famous\ncavalry leader to whom looting and burning were things of every\nday, had so awful a visitation befallen a town. Only the great\ncathedral and a few houses near it were left standing. The history\nof warfare of the Christian peoples of that day reads like a horrid\nnightmare. The fighting armies left a trail of black desolation\nwhere they passed. \u201cThey are not made up of birds that feed on\nair,\u201d sneered Tilly. Peaceful husbandmen were murdered, the young\nwomen dragged away to worse than slavery, and helpless children\nspitted upon the lances of the wild landsknechts and tossed with a\nlaugh into the blazing ruins of their homes. But no such foul blot\ncleaves to the memory of Gustav Adolf. While he lived his men were\nsoldiers, not demons. In his tent the work of Hugo Grotius on the\nrights of the nations in war and peace lay beside the Bible and\nhe knew them both by heart. When he was gone, the fame of some of\nhis greatest generals was smirched by as vile orgies as Tilly\u2019s\nworst days had witnessed. It is told of John Ban\u00e9r, one of the most\nbrilliant of them, that he demanded ransom of the city of Prix,\npast which his way led. The city fathers permitted themselves an\nuntimely jest: \u201cPrix giebt nichts\u2014Prix gives nothing,\u201d they said.\nBan\u00e9r was as brief: \u201cPrix wird zu nichts\u2014Prix comes to nothing,\u201d\nand his army wiped it out.\n\nGrief and anger almost choked the King when he heard of Magdeburg\u2019s\nfate. \u201cI will avenge that on the Old Corporal (Tilly\u2019s nickname),\u201d\nhe cried, \u201cif it costs my life.\u201d Without further ado he forced the\ntwo Electors to terms and joined the Saxon army to his own. On\nSeptember 7, 1631, fifteen months after he had landed in Germany,\nhe met Tilly face to face at Breitenfeld, a village just north\nof Leipzig. The Emperor\u2019s host in its brave show of silver and\nplumes and gold, the plunder of many campaigns under its invincible\nleader, looked with contempt upon the travel-worn Swedes in their\npoor, soiled garb. The stolid Finns sat their mean but wiry little\nhorses very unlike Pappenheim\u2019s dreaded Walloons, descendants of\nthe warlike Belg\u00e6 of Gaul who defied the Germans of old in the\nforest of the Ardennes and joined C\u00e6sar in his victorious march.\nBut Tilly himself was not deceived. He knew how far this enemy had\ncome and with what hardships cheerfully borne; how they had routed\nthe Russians, written laws for the Poles in their own land, and\noverthrown armies and forts that barred their way. He would wait\nfor re\u00ebnforcements; but his generals egged him on, said age had\nmade him timid and slow, and carried the day.\n\nThe King slept in an empty cart the night before the battle and\ndreamed that he wrestled with Tilly and threw him, but that he tore\nhis breast with his teeth. When all was ready in the morning he\nrode along the front and told his fusiliers not to shoot till they\nsaw the white in the enemy\u2019s eyes, the horsemen not to dull their\nswords by hacking the helmets of the Walloons: \u201cCut at their horses\nand they will go down with them.\u201d In the pause before the onset he\nprayed with head uncovered and lowered sword, and his voice carried\nto the farthest lines:\n\n\u201cThou, God, in whose hands are victory and defeat, look graciously\nupon thy servants. From distant lands and peaceful homes have we\ncome to battle for freedom, truth and thy gospel. Give us victory\nfor thy holy name\u2019s sake, Amen!\u201d\n\nTilly had expected the King to attack, but the fiery Pappenheim\nupset his plans. The smoke of the guns drifted in the faces of the\nSwedes and the King swung his army to the south to get the wind\nright. In making the turn they had to cross a brook and this moment\nPappenheim chose for his charge. Like a thunderbolt his Walloons\nfell upon them. The Swedish fire mowed them down like ripened grain\nand checked their impetuous rush. They tried to turn the King\u2019s\nright and so outflank him; but the army turned with them and stood\nlike a rock. The extreme mobility of his forces was Gustav Adolf\u2019s\ngreat advantage in his campaigns. He revised the book of military\ntactics up to date. The imperial troops were massed in solid\ncolumns, after the old Spanish fashion, the impact of which was\nhard to resist when they struck. The King\u2019s, on the contrary, moved\nin smaller bodies, quickly thrown upon the point of danger, and\nhis artillery was so distributed among them as to make every shot\ntell on the compact body of the enemy. Whichever way Pappenheim\nturned he found a firm front, bristling with guns, opposing him.\nSeven times he threw himself upon the living wall; each time his\nhorsemen were flung back, their lines thinned and broken. The field\nwas strewn with their dead. Tilly, anxiously watching, threw up his\nhands in despair. \u201cThis man will lose me honor and fame, and the\nEmperor his lands,\u201d he cried. The charge ended in wild flight, and\nTilly saw that he must himself attack, to turn the tide.\n\nOn the double-quick his columns of spearmen charged down the\nheights, swept the Saxons from the field, and fell upon the Swedish\nleft. The shock was tremendous. General Gustav Horn gave back to\nlet his second line come up, and held the ground stubbornly against\nfearful odds. Word was brought the King of his danger. With the\nright wing that had crushed Pappenheim he hurried to the rescue.\nIn the heat of the fight the armies had changed position, and\nthe Swedes found themselves climbing the hill upon which Tilly\u2019s\nartillery was posted. Seeing this, the King made one of the rapid\nmovements that more than once won him the day. Raising the cry,\n\u201cRemember Magdeburg!\u201d he carried the position with his Finns by a\nsudden overwhelming assault, and turned the guns upon the dense\nmasses of the enemy fighting below.\n\nIn vain they stormed the heights. Both wings and the centre closed\nin upon them, and the day was lost. Tilly fled, wounded, and\nnarrowly escaped capture. A captain in the Swedish army, who was\ncalled Long Fritz because of his great height, was at his heels\nhammering him on the head with the butt of his pistol. A staff\nofficer shot him down in passing, and freed his chief. Twilight\nfell upon a battle-field where seven thousand men lay dead,\ntwo-thirds of them the flower of the Emperor\u2019s army. Blood-stained\nand smoke-begrimed, Gustav Adolf and his men knelt on the field and\nthanked God for the victory.\n\nHad the King\u2019s friend and adviser, Axel Oxenstjerna, been with him\nhe might have marched upon Vienna then, leaving the Protestant\nEstates to settle their own affairs, and very likely have ended the\nwar. Gustav Adolf thought of Tilly who would return with another\narmy. Oxenstjerna saw farther, weighing things upon the scales of\nthe diplomatist.\n\n\u201cHow think you we would fare,\u201d asked the King once, when the\nchancellor saw obstacles in their way which he would brush aside,\n\u201cif my fire did not thaw the chill in you?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut for my chill cooling your Majesty\u2019s fire,\u201d was his friend\u2019s\nretort, \u201cyou would have long since been burned up.\u201d The King\nlaughed and owned that he was right.\n\nInstead of bearding the Emperor in his capital he turned toward the\nRhine where millions of Protestants were praying for his coming and\nwhere his army might find rest and abundance. The cathedral city\nof Wuerzburg he took by storm. The bishop who ruled it fled at his\napproach, but the full treasury of the Jesuits fell into his hands.\nThe Madonna of beaten gold and the twelve solid silver apostles,\nfamous throughout Europe, were sent to the mint and coined into\nmoney to pay his army. In the cellar they found chests filled with\nducats. The bottom fell out of one as they carried it up and the\ngold rolled out on the pavement. The soldiers swarmed to pick it\nup, but a good many coins stuck to their pockets. The King saw it\nand laughed: \u201cSince you have them, boys, keep them.\u201d The dead were\nstill lying in the castle yard after the siege, a number of monks\namong them. The color of some of them seemed high for corpses.\n\u201cArise from the dead,\u201d he said waggishly, \u201cno one will hurt you,\u201d\nand the frightened monks got upon their feet and scampered away.\n\nFrankfort opened its gates to his victorious host and N\u00fcrnberg\nreceived him as a heaven-sent liberator. But Tilly was in the field\nwith a fresh army, burning to avenge Breitenfeld. He had surprised\nGeneral Horn at Bamberg and beaten him. At the approach of the King\nhe camped where the river Lech joins the Danube, awaiting attack.\nThere was but one place to cross to get at him, and right there he\nstood. The king seized Donauworth and Ulm, and under cover of the\nfire of seventy guns threw a bridge across the Lech. Three hundred\nFinns carrying picks and spades ran across the shaky planks upon\nwhich the fire of Tilly\u2019s whole artillery park was concentrated.\nOnce across, they burrowed in the ground like moles and, with\nbullets raining upon them, threw up earthworks for shelter. Squad\nafter squad of volunteers followed. Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar\nswam his horsemen across the river farther up-stream and took the\nBavarian troops in the flank, beating them back far enough to let\nhim join the Finns at the landing. The King himself was directing\nthe artillery on the other shore, aiming the guns with his own\nhand. The Walloons, Tilly\u2019s last hope, charged, but broke under the\nwithering fire. In desperation the old field-marshal seized the\nstandard and himself led the forlorn hope. Half-way to the bridge\nhe fell, one leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and panic seized his\nmen. The imperialists fled in the night, carrying their wounded\nleader. He died on the march soon after. Men said of him that he\nhad served his master well.\n\nThe snow-king had not melted in the south. He was master of the\nRoman empire from the Baltic to the Alps. The way to Austria and\nItaly lay open before him. Protestant princes crowded to do him\nhomage, offering him the imperial crown. But Gustav Adolf did\nnot lose his head. Toward the humbled Catholics he showed only\nforbearance and toleration. In Munich he visited the college of\nthe Jesuits, and spoke long with the rector in the Latin tongue,\nassuring him of their safety as long as they kept from politics and\nplotting. The armory in that city was known to be the best stocked\nin all Europe and the King\u2019s surprise was great when he found\ngun-carriages in plenty, but not a single cannon. Looking about\nhim, he saw evidence that the floor had been hastily relaid and\nremembered the \u201cdead\u201d monks at W\u00fcrzburg. He had it taken up and a\ndark vault appeared. The King looked into it.\n\n\u201cArise!\u201d he called out, \u201cand come to judgment,\u201d and amid shouts of\nlaughter willing hands brought out a hundred and forty good guns,\nwelcome re\u00ebnforcements.\n\nThe ignorant Bavarian peasants had been told that the King was\nthe very anti-Christ, come to harass the world for its sins, and\ncarried on a cruel guerilla warfare upon his army. They waylaid the\nSwedes by night on their foraging trips and maimed and murdered\nthose they caught with fiendish tortures. The bitterest anger\nfilled Gustav Adolf\u2019s soul when upon his entry into Landshut the\nburgomaster knelt at his stirrup asking mercy for his city.\n\n\u201cPray not to me,\u201d he said harshly, \u201cbut to God for yourself and for\nyour people, for in truth you have need.\u201d\n\nFor once thoughts of vengeance seemed to fill his soul. \u201cNo, no!\u201d\nhe thundered when the frightened burgomaster pleaded that his\ntownsmen should not be held accountable for the cruelty of the\ncountry folk, \u201cyou are beasts, not men, and deserve to be wiped\nfrom the earth with fire and sword.\u201d From out the multitude there\ncame a warning voice: \u201cWill the King now abandon the path of mercy\nfor the way of vengeance and visit his wrath upon these innocent\npeople?\u201d No one saw the speaker. The day was oppressively hot\nand the King came near fainting in the saddle. As he rode out of\nthe city toward the camp, a bolt of lightning struck the ground\nbeside him and a mighty crash of thunder rolled overhead. Pale\nand thoughtful, he rode on. But Landshut was spared. That evening\nGeneral Horn brought the anxious citizens the King\u2019s promise of\npardon.\n\nA few weeks later tidings reached Gustav Adolf that Wallenstein\nand the Elector of Bavaria were marching to effect a junction\nat N\u00fcrnberg. If they took the city, his line of communication\nwas cut and his army threatened. Wallenstein, who was a traitor,\nhad been in disgrace; but he was a great general and in his dire\nneed Emperor Ferdinand had no one else to turn to. So he took him\nback on his own terms, and in the spring he had an army of forty\nthousand veterans in the field. This was the host he was leading\nagainst N\u00fcrnberg. But the King got there first and intrenched\nhimself so strongly that there was no ousting him. Wallenstein\nfollowed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another\nfrom their \u201clagers,\u201d neither willing to risk an attack. In the\nend Gustav Adolf tried, but even his Finns could not take the\nimpregnable heights the enemy held. At last he went away with\ncolors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy\u2019s walls, in\nthe hope of tempting him out. But he never stirred.\n\nWhen Wallenstein was sure he had gone, he burned his camp and\nturned toward Saxony to punish the Elector for joining the Swedes.\nA wail of anguish went up from that unhappy land and the King heard\nit clear across the country. By forced marches he hurried to the\nrescue of his ally, picking up Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar on the way.\nAt Naumburg the people crowded about him and sought to kiss or even\nto touch his garments. The King looked sadly at them. \u201cThey put\ntheir trust in me, poor weak mortal, as if I were the Almighty.\nIt may be that He will punish their folly soon upon the object\nof their senseless idolatry.\u201d He had come to stay, but when he\nlearned that Wallenstein had sent Pappenheim away to the west, thus\nweakening his army, and was going into winter quarters at L\u00fctzen,\nnear Leipzig, a half-day\u2019s march from the memorable Breitenfeld, he\nbroke camp at once and hastened to attack him. Starting early, his\narmy reached L\u00fctzen at nightfall on November 15, 1632.\n\nWallenstein believed the campaign was over for that year and the\nSwedes in winter quarters, and was taken completely by surprise.\nHad the King given battle that night, he would have wiped the enemy\nout. Two things, in themselves of little account, delayed him: a\nsmall brook that crossed his path, and the freshly plowed fields.\nHis men were tired after the long march and he decided to let them\nrest. It was Wallenstein\u2019s chance. Overnight he posted his army\nnorth of the highway that leads from L\u00fctzen to Leipzig, dug deep\nthe ditches that enclosed it, and made breastworks of the dirt.\nSunrise found sheltered behind them twenty-seven thousand seasoned\nveterans to whom Gustav Adolf could oppose but twenty thousand; but\nhe had more guns and they were better served.\n\nAs the day broke the Swedish army, drawn up in battle array,\nintoned Luther\u2019s hymn, \u201cA mighty fortress is our God,\u201d and cheered\nthe King. He wore a leathern doublet and a gray mantle. To the\npleadings of his officers that he put on armor he replied only,\n\u201cGod is my armor.\u201d \u201cTo-day,\u201d he cried as he rode along the lines,\n\u201cwill end all our hardships.\u201d He himself took command of the right\nwing, the gallant Duke Bernhard of the left. As at Breitenfeld, the\nrallying cry was, \u201cGod with us!\u201d\n\nThe King hoped to crush his enemy utterly, and the whole line\nattacked at once with great fury. From the start victory leaned\ntoward the Swedish army. Then suddenly in the wild tumult of\nbattle a heavy fog settled upon the field. What followed was all\nconfusion. No one knows the rights of it to this day. The King led\nhis famous yellow and blue regiments against the enemy\u2019s left.\n\u201cThe black fellows there,\u201d he shouted, pointing to the Emperor\u2019s\ncuirassiers in their black armor, \u201cattack them!\u201d Just then an\nadjutant reported that his infantry was hard-pressed. \u201cFollow me,\u201d\nhe commanded, and, clapping spurs to his horse, set off at full\nspeed for the threatened quarter. In the fog he lost his way and\nran into the cuirassiers. His two attendants were shot down and a\nbullet crushed the King\u2019s right arm. He tried to hide the fact that\nhe was wounded, but pain and loss of blood made him faint and he\nasked the Duke of Lauenburg who rode with him to help him out of\nthe crush. At that moment a fresh troop of horsemen bore down upon\nthem and their leader, Moritz von Falkenberg, shot the King through\nthe body with the exultant cry, \u201cYou I have long sought!\u201d The words\nhad hardly left his lips when he fell with a bullet through his\nhead.\n\nThe King swayed in the saddle and lost the reins. \u201cSave yourself,\u201d\nhe whispered to the Duke, \u201cI am done for.\u201d The Duke put his arm\naround him to support him, but the cuirassiers surged against them\nand tore them apart. The King\u2019s horse was shot in the neck and\nthrew its rider. Awhile he hung by the stirrup and was dragged\nover the trampled field. Then the horse shook itself free and ran\nthrough the lines, spreading the tidings of the King\u2019s fall afar.\n\nA German page, Leubelfing, a lad of eighteen, was alone with the\nKing. He sprang from his horse and tried to help him into the\nsaddle but had not the strength to do it. Gustav Adolf was stout\nand very heavy. While he was trying to lift him some Croats rode up\nand demanded the name of the wounded man. The page held his tongue,\nand they ran him through. Gustav Adolf, to save him, said that\nhe was the King.[12] At that they shot him through the head, and\nshowered blows upon him. When the body was found in the night it\nwas naked. They had robbed and stripped him.\n\nThe King was dead. Through the Swedish ranks Duke Bernhard shouted\nthe tidings. \u201cWho now cares to live? Forward, to avenge his death!\u201d\nWith the blind fury of the Berserkers of old the Swedes cleared\nthe ditches, stormed the breastworks, and drove the foe in a panic\nbefore them. The Duke\u2019s arm was broken by a bullet. He hardly knew\nit. With his regiment he rode down the crew of one of the enemy\u2019s\nbatteries and swept on. In the midst of it all a cry resounded over\nthe plain that made the runaways halt and turn back.\n\n\u201cPappenheim! Pappenheim is here!\u201d\n\nHe had come with his Walloons in answer to the general\u2019s summons.\n\u201cWhere is the King?\u201d he asked, and they pointed to the Finnish\nbrigade. With a mighty crash the two hosts that had met so often\nbefore came together. Wallenstein mustered his scattered forces and\nthe King\u2019s army was attacked from three sides at once. The yellow\nbrigade fell where it stood almost to the last man. The blue fared\nlittle better. Slowly the Swedish infantry gave back. The battle\nseemed lost.\n\nBut the tide turned once more. In the hottest fight Pappenheim\nfell, pierced by three bullets. The \u201cman of a hundred scars\u201d\ndied, exulting that the King whom he hated had gone before. With\nhis death the Emperor\u2019s men lost heart. The Swedes charged again\nand again with unabated fury. Night closed in with Wallenstein\u2019s\ncentre still unbroken; but he had lost all his guns. Under cover\nof the darkness he made his escape. The King\u2019s army camped upon\nthe battle-field. The carnage had been fearful; nine thousand were\nslain. It was Wallenstein\u2019s last fight. With the remnants of his\narmy he retreated to Bohemia, sick and sore, and spent his last\ndays there plotting against his master. He died by an assassin\u2019s\nhand.\n\nThe cathedrals of Vienna, Brussels, and Madrid rang with joyful\nTe Deums at the news of the King\u2019s death. The Spanish capital\ncelebrated the \u201ctriumph\u201d with twelve days of bull-fighting. Emperor\nFerdinand was better than his day; he wept at the sight of the\nKing\u2019s blood-stained jacket. The Protestant world trembled; its\nhope and strength were gone. But the Swedish people, wiping away\ntheir tears, resolved stoutly to carry on Gustav Adolf\u2019s work. The\nmen he had trained led his armies to victory on yet many a stricken\nfield. Peace came at length to Europe; the last religious war had\nbeen fought and won. Freedom of worship, liberty of conscience,\nwere bought at the cost of the kingliest head that ever wore a\ncrown. The great ruler\u2019s life-work was done.\n\nGustav Adolf was in his thirty-eighth year when he fell. Of stature\nhe was tall and stout, a fair-haired, blue-eyed giant, stern in\nwar, gentle in the friendships of peace. He was a born ruler of\nmen. Though he was away fighting in foreign lands all the years of\nhis reign, he kept a firm grasp on the home affairs of his kingdom.\nOne traces his hand everywhere, ordering, shaping, finding ways, or\nmaking them where there was none. The valuable mines of Sweden were\nill managed. The metal was exported in coarse pigs to Germany for\nvery little, worked up there, and resold to Sweden at the highest\nprice. He created a Board of Mines, established smelteries, and the\nday came when, instead of going abroad for its munitions of war,\nSweden had for its customers half Europe. Like Christian of Denmark\nwith whom he disagreed, he encouraged industries and greatly\nfurthered trade and commerce. He built highways and canals, and he\ndid not forget the cause of instruction. Upon the university at\nUpsala he bestowed his entire personal patrimony of three hundred\nand thirteen farms as a free gift. His people honor him with cause\nas the real founder of the Swedish system of education.\n\nThe master he was always. Sweden had, on one hand, a powerful,\nable nobility; on the other, a strong, independent peasantry,\u2014a\ncombination full of pitfalls for a weak ruler, but with equal\npromise of great things under the master hand. His father had cowed\nthe stubborn nobles with the headsman\u2019s axe. Gustav Adolf drew\nthem to him and imbued them with his own spirit. He found them a\ncontentious party within the state; he left them its strongest\nprops in the conduct of public affairs. Nor was it always with\npersuasion he worked. His reward for the unjust judge has been\nquoted. When the council failed to send him supplies in Germany,\npleading failure of crops as their excuse, he wrote back: \u201cYou\nspeak of the high prices of corn. Probably they are high because\nthose who have it want to profit by the need of others.\u201d And he set\na new chief over the finances. On the other hand, he gave shape\nto the relations between king and people. The Riksdag held its\nsessions, but the laws that ruled it were so vague that it was no\nunusual thing for men who were not members at all to attend and\njoin in the debates. Gustav Adolf put an abrupt end to \u201ca state\nof things that exposed Sweden to the contempt of the nations.\u201d\nAs he ordered it, the initiative remained with the crown; it was\nthe right of the Riksdag to complain and discuss; of the King to\n\u201cchoose the best\u201d after hearing all sides.\n\nAs a young prince, Gustav Adolf fell deeply in love with Ebba\nBrahe, the beautiful daughter of one of Sweden\u2019s most powerful\nnoblemen. The two had been play-mates and became lovers. But the\nold queen frowned upon the match. He was the coming king, she was\na subject, and the queen managed, with the help of Oxenstjerna,\nwho was Gustav\u2019s best friend all through his life, to make him\ngive up his love. \u201cThen I will never marry,\u201d he cried in a burst\nof tempestuous grief. But when the queen had got Ebba Brahe safely\nmarried to one of his father\u2019s famous generals, he wedded the\nlovely sister of the Elector of Brandenburg. She adored her royal\nhusband, but never took kindly to Sweden, and the people did not\nlike her. They clung to the great king\u2019s early love, and to this\nday they linger before the picture of the beautiful Ebba in the\nStockholm castle when they come from his grave in the Riddarholm\nchurch, while they pass the queen\u2019s by with hardly a glance. It is\nrecorded that Ebba made her husband a good and dutiful wife. If her\nthoughts strayed at times to the old days and what might have been,\nit is not strange. In one of those moods she wrote on a window-pane\nin the castle:\n\n      I am happy in my lot,\n      And thanks I give to God.\n\nThe queen-mother saw it and wrote under it her own version:\n\n      You wouldn\u2019t, but you must.\n      \u2019Tis the lot of the dust.\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[12] This is the story as the page told it. He lived two days.\n\n\n\n\nKING AND SAILOR, HEROES OF COPENHAGEN\n\n\nOf all the foolish wars that were ever waged, it would seem that\nthe one declared by Denmark against Sweden in 1657 had the least\nexcuse. A century before, the two countries had fought through\neight bitter years over the momentous question whether Denmark\nshould carry in her shield the three lions that stood for the three\nScandinavian kingdoms, the Swedish one having set up for itself\nin the dissolution of the union between them, and at the end of\nthe fight they were where they had started: each of them kept the\nwhole brood. But this war was without even that excuse. Denmark\nwas helplessly impoverished. Her trade was ruined; the nobles were\nsucking the marrow of the country. Of the freehold farms that had\nbeen its strength scarce five thousand were left in the land. It\ncould hardly pay its way in days of peace. Its strongholds lay in\nruins; it had neither arms, ammunition, nor officers. On its roster\nof thirty thousand men for the national defence were carried the\ndead and the yet unborn, while the Swedish army of tried veterans\nhad gone from victory to victory under a warlike king. To cap the\nclimax, Copenhagen had been harassed by pestilence that had killed\none-fifth of its fifty thousand people.\n\nSo ill matched were they when a stubborn king forced a war that\ncould end only in disaster. When one of his councillors advised\nagainst the folly, he caned him and sent him into exile. Yet out of\nthe fiery trial this king came a hero; his queen, whose pride and\nwasteful vanity[13] had done its full share in bringing the country\nto the verge of ruin, became the idol of the nation. In the hour\nof its peril she grew to the stature of a great woman who shared\ndanger and hardship with her people and by her example put hope and\ncourage into their hearts.\n\nKarl Gustav, the Swedish king, was campaigning in Poland, but as\nsoon as he could turn around he marched his army against Denmark,\nscattered the forces that opposed him, and before news of his\nadvance had reached Copenhagen knocked at the gate of Denmark\ndemanding \u201cspeech of brother Frederik in good Swedish.\u201d A winter\nof great severity had bridged the Baltic and the sounds of the\nisland kingdom. In two weeks he led his army, horse, foot, and\nguns, over the frozen seas where hardly a wagon had dared cross\nbefore. Great rifts yawned in their way, and whole companies were\nswallowed up; his own sleigh sank in the deep, but nothing stopped\nhim. Danish emissaries came pleading for peace. He met them on the\nway to the capital, surrounded by his Finnish horsemen, and gave\nscant ear to their speeches while he drove on. Before the city he\nhalted and dictated a peace so humiliating that one of the Danish\ncommissioners exclaimed when he came to sign, \u201cI wish I could not\nwrite.\u201d Perhaps the same wish troubled the conqueror\u2019s ambitious\ndreams. The peace was broken as swiftly as made. In five months he\nwas back before Frederik\u2019s capital with his whole army, while a\nSwedish fleet anchored in the roadstead outside. \u201cWhat difference\ndoes it make to you,\u201d was the contemptuous taunt flung at the\nanxious envoys who sought his camp, \u201cwhether the name of your king\nis Karl or Frederik so long as you are safe?\u201d He had come to make\nan end of Denmark.\n\nCopenhagen was almost without defences. The old earth walls mounted\nonly six guns, with breastworks scarce knee-high. In places King\nKarl could have driven his sleigh into the heart of the city at the\nhead of his army. But for the second time he hesitated when a swift\nblow would have won all\u2014and lost. Overnight the Danish nation awoke\nto a fight for its life. King and people, till then strangers, in\nthat hour became one. Frederik the Third met the craven counsel\nthat he fly to Norway with the proud answer, \u201cI will die in my\nnest, if need be, and my wife with me.\u201d With a shout the burghers\nswore to fight to the last man. The walls of the city rose as if\nby magic. Nobles and mechanics, clergy and laborers, students,\nprofessors and sailors worked side by side; high-born women wheeled\nbarrows. Every tree was cut down and made into palisades. The crops\nripening in the fields were gathered in haste and the cattle driven\nin. The city had been provisioned for barely a week and garrisoned\nby four hundred raw recruits. Sailors from the useless ships took\nout their guns and mounted them in the redoubts. Peasants flocked\nin and were armed with battle-axes, clubs, and boat-hooks when the\nsupply of muskets gave out. When Karl Gustav drew his lines tight\nhe faced six thousand determined men behind strong walls. The city\nstood in a ring of blazing fires. Its defenders were burning down\nthe houses and woods beyond the moats to clear the way for their\ngunners. The King watched the sight from his horse in silence. He\nknew what it meant; he had fought in the Thirty Years\u2019 War: \u201cNow, I\nvow, we shall have fighting,\u201d was all he said.\n\nIt was not long in coming. On the second night the garrison made\na sortie and drove back the invaders, destroying their works with\ngreat slaughter. Night after night, and sometimes in the broad day,\nthey returned to the charge, overwhelming the Swedes where least\nexpected, capturing their guns, their supplies, and their outposts.\nShort of arms and ammunition, they took them in the enemy\u2019s\nlines. In one of these raids Karl Gustav himself was all but made\nprisoner. A horseman had him by the shoulder, but he wrenched\nhimself loose and spurred his horse into the sea where a boat from\none of the ships rescued him. The defence took on something of the\nfervor of religious frenzy. Twice a day services were held on the\nwalls of the city; within, the men who could not bear arms, and the\nwomen, barricaded the streets with stones and iron chains for the\nlast fight, were it to come. In his place on the wall every burgher\nhad a hundred brickbats or stones piled up for ammunition, and by\nnight when the enemy rained red-hot shot upon the city, he fought\nwith a club or spear in one hand, a torch in the other.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _From a painting by Lund_\n\nTHE SIEGE OF COPENHAGEN, 1658]\n\nEleven weeks the battle raged by night and by day. Then a Dutch\nfleet forced its way through the blockade after a fight in which\nit lost six ships and two admirals. It brought food, ammunition,\nand troops. The joy in the city was great. All day the church bells\nwere rung, and the people hailed the Dutch as the saviours of the\nnation. But when they, too, would thank God for the victory and\nasked for the use of the University\u2019s hall, they were refused. They\nwere followers of Calvin and their heresies must not be preached\nin the place set apart for teaching the doctrines of the \u201cpure\nfaith,\u201d said the professors, who were Lutheran. It was the way of\nthe day. The Reformation had learned little from the bigotry of the\nInquisition. The Dutchmen had to be content with the court-house.\nBut the siege was not over. Another hard winter closed in with the\nenemy at the door, burrowing hourly nearer the outworks, and food\nand fire-wood grew scarcer day by day in the hard-pressed city.\nWhen things were at the worst pass in February, the Swedes gathered\ntheir hosts for a final assault. In the midnight hour they came on\nwith white shirts drawn over their uniforms to make it hard to tell\nthem from the snow. Karl Gustav himself led the storming party and\nat last was in the way of \u201cgetting speech of brother Frederik,\u201d for\nthe Danish King was as good as his word. He had said that he would\ndie in his nest, and time and again he had to be sternly reasoned\nwith to prevent him from exposing himself overmuch. Where the\ndanger was greatest he was, and beside him ever the queen, all her\nfrivolity gone and forgotten. She who had danced at the court fetes\nand followed the hounds on the chase as if the world had no other\ncares, became the very incarnation of the spirit of the bitter and\nbloody struggle. All through that winter the royal couple lived in\na tent among their men, and when the alarm was sounded they were\nfirst on foot to lead them. Now that the hour had come, they were\nin the forefront of the fight.\n\nWhere the famous pleasure garden Tivoli now is, the strength of the\nenemy was massed against the redoubts at the western gate. The name\nof \u201cStorm Street\u201d tells yet of the doings of that night. King Karl\nhad promised to give over the captured town to be sacked by his\narmy three days and nights, and like hungry wolves they swarmed to\nthe attack, a mob of sailors and workmen with scaling ladders in\nthe van. The moats they crossed in spite of the gaps that had been\nmade in the ice to stop them, but the garrison had poured water\nover the walls that froze as it ran, until they were like slippery\nicebergs. A bird could have found no foothold on them. Showers of\nrocks and junk and clubs fell upon the laddermen. Three times Karl\nGustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven\nback, broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only\nto be dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and\ntheir homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over\nthe breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams\nand rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the\nenemy. In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king\u2019s\ncouncillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face,\nsaw that it was his own son breathing his last. He bent over and\nkissed him, and went on fighting.\n\nIn the early morning hour Karl Gustav gave the order to retreat.\nThe attack had failed. Many of his general officers were slain;\nnearly half of his army was killed, disabled, or captured. Six\nSwedish standards were taken by the Danes. The moats were filled\nwith the dead. The Swedes had \u201ccome in their shrouds.\u201d The guns\nof the city thundered out a triple salute of triumph and the\npeople sang Te Deums on the walls. Their hardships were not over.\nFifteen months yet the city was invested and the home of daily\nprivation; but their greatest peril was past. Copenhagen was saved,\nand with it the nation; the people had found itself and its king.\nThat autumn a second Swedish army under the veteran Stenbock was\nmassacred in the island of Fyen, and Karl Gustav exclaimed when\nthe beaten general brought him the news, \u201cSince the devil took the\nsheep he might have taken the buck too.\u201d He never got over it.\nThree months later he lay dead, and the siege of Copenhagen was\nraised in May, 1660. It had lasted twenty months.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSeven score years and one passed, and the morning of Holy\nThursday[14] saw a British fleet sailing slowly up the deep before\nCopenhagen, the deck of every ship bristling with guns, their\ncrews at quarters, Lord Nelson\u2019s signal to \u201cclose for action\u201d\nflying from the top of the flag-ship _Elephant_. Between the fleet\nand the shore lay a line of dismantled hulks on which men with\nsteady eyes and stout hearts were guarding Denmark\u2019s honor. Once\nmore it had been jeopardized by foolish counsel in high places.\nDanish statesmen had trifled and temporized while England, facing\nall Europe alone in the fight for her life, made ready to strike\na decisive blow against the Armed Neutrality that threatened\nher supremacy on the sea. Once more the city had been caught\nunprepared, defenceless, and once more its people rose as one man\nto meet the danger. But it was too late. Outside, in the Sound, a\nfleet as great as that led by Nelson waited, should he fail, to\nfinish his work. That was to destroy the Danish ships, if need\nbe to bombard the city and so detach Denmark from the coalition\nof England\u2019s foes. So she chose to consider such as were not her\ndeclared friends.\n\nDenmark had no fighting ships at home to pit against her. Her\nsailors were away serving in the merchant marine. She had no\npractised gunners, nothing but a huddle of dismantled vessels\nin her navy-yard, most of them half-rotten hulks without masts.\nThose that had standing rigging were even worse, for none of them\nhad sails and the falling spars in battle lumbered up the decks\nand menaced the crew. But such as they were she made the most of\nthem. Eighteen hulks were hauled into the channel and moored head\nand stern. Where they lay they could not be moved. Only the guns\non one side were therefore of use, while the enemy could turn and\nman\u0153uvre. They were manned by farm lads, mechanics, students,\nenlisted in haste, not one of whom had ever smelt powder, and these\nwere matched against Nelson\u2019s grim veterans. Even their commander,\nJ. Olfert Fischer, had not been under fire before that day, for\nDenmark had had peace for eighty years. But his father had served\nas a midshipman with Tordenskjold and the son did not flinch,\noutnumbered though his force was, two to one, in men and guns.\n\nThe sun shone fair upon the blue waters as the great fleet of\nthirty-odd fighting ships sailed up from the south. From the city\u2019s\nwalls and towers a mighty multitude watched it come, unmindful of\nperil from shot and shell; the Danish line was not half a mile\naway. In the churches whose bells were still ringing when the first\ngun was fired from the block-ship _Pr\u00f6vestenen_, the old men and\nwomen prayed through the long day, for there were few homes in\nCopenhagen that did not have son, brother, or friend fighting out\nthere. A single gun answered the challenge, now two and three at\nonce, then broadside crashed upon broadside with deafening roar.\nWhen at length all was quiet a tremendous report shook the city. It\nwas the flag-ship _Dannebrog_ that blew up. She was on fire with\nonly three serviceable guns left when she struck her colors, but no\nship of her name might sail with an enemy\u2019s prize crew on board,\nand she did not.\n\nThe story of that bloody day has been told many times. Briton and\nDane hoist their flags on April 2 with equal right, for never was\nchallenge met with more dauntless valor. Lord Nelson owned that of\nall the hundred and five battles he had fought this was hottest.\nOn the _Monarch_, which for hours was under the most galling fire\nfrom the Danish ships, two hundred and twenty of the crew were\nkilled or wounded. \u201cThere was not a single man standing,\u201d wrote a\nyoung officer on board of her, \u201cthe whole way from the mainmast\nforward, a district containing eight guns a side, some of which\nwere run out ready for firing, others lay dismounted, and others\nremained as they were after recoiling.... I hastened down the fore\nladder to the lower deck and felt really relieved to find somebody\nalive.\u201d The slaughter on the Danish ships was even greater. More\nthan one-fifth of their entire strength of a little over five\nthousand men were slain or wounded. Of the eighteen hulls they\nlost thirteen, but only one were the British able to take home\nwith them. The rest were literally shot to pieces and were burned\nwhere they lay. As one after another was silenced, those yet alive\non board spiked their last guns, if indeed there were any left\nworth the trouble, threw their powder overboard and made, for the\nshore. Twice the Danish Admiral abandoned his burning ship, the\nlast time taking up his post in the island battery Tre Kroner.\nEach time one of the old hulls was crushed, a Briton pushed into\nthe hole made in the line and raked the remaining ones fore and\naft until their decks were like huge shambles. The block-ship\n_Indf\u00f6dsretten_ bore the concentrated fire of five frigates and\ntwo smaller vessels throughout most of the battle. Her chief was\nkilled. When the news reached head-quarters on shore, Captain von\nSchr\u00f6dersee, an old naval officer who had been retired because of\nill health, volunteered to take his place. He was rowed out, but\nas he came over the side of the ship a cannon-ball cut him in two.\n_Pr\u00f6vestenen_, as it was the first to fire a shot, held out also\nto the last. One-fourth of her crew lay dead, and her flag had\nbeen shot away three times when the decks threatened to cave in\nand Captain Lassen spiked his last guns and left the wreck to be\nburned. All through the fight she was the target of ninety guns to\nwhich she could oppose only twenty-nine of her own sixty.\n\nNelson had promised Admiral Parker to finish the fight in an hour.\nWhen the battle had lasted three, Parker signalled to him to stop.\nEvery school-boy knows the story of how Lord Nelson put the glass\nto his blind eye and, remarking that he could see no signal, kept\nright on. In the end he had to resort to stratagem to force a truce\nso that he might disentangle some of his ships that were drifting\ninto great danger in the narrow channel. The ruse succeeded. Crown\nPrince Frederik, moved by compassion for the wounded whom Nelson\nthreatened to burn with the captured hulks if firing did not stop,\nordered hostilities to cease without consulting the Admiral of\nthe fleet, and the battle was over. Denmark\u2019s honor was saved.\n\u201cNothing,\u201d wrote our own Captain Mahan, \u201ccould place a nation\u2019s\nwarlike fame higher than did her great deeds that day.\u201d All else\nwas lost; for \u201cthere had come upon Denmark one of those days of\njudgment to which nations are liable who neglect in time of peace\nto prepare for war.\u201d It had been long coming, but it had overtaken\nher at last and found all the bars down.\n\nAlongside the _Dannebrog_ throughout her fight with Nelson\u2019s\nflag-ship, and edging ever closer in under the _Elephant\u2019s_ side\nuntil at last the marines were sent to man her rail and keep it\naway with their muskets, lay a floating battery mounting twenty\nguns under command of a beardless second lieutenant. The name of\nPeter Willemoes will live as long as the Danish tongue is spoken.\nBarely graduated from the Naval Academy, he was but eighteen when\nthe need of officers thrust the command of \u201cFloating Battery No.\n1\u201d upon him. So gallantly did he acquit himself that Nelson took\nnotice of the young man who, every time a broadside crashed into\nhis ship or overhead, swung his cocked hat and led his men in a\nlusty cheer. When after the battle he met the Crown Prince on\nshore, the English commander asked to be introduced to his youthful\nadversary. \u201cYou ought to make an admiral of him,\u201d he said, and\nPrince Frederik smiled: \u201cIf I were to make admirals of all my brave\nofficers, I should have no captains or lieutenants left.\u201d When the\n_Dannebrog_ drifted on the shoals, abandoned and burning, Willemoes\ncut his cables and got away under cover of the heavy smoke. Having\nneither sails nor oars, he was at the mercy of the tide, but\nluckily it carried him to the north of the Tre Kroner battery, and\nhe reached port with forty-nine of his crew of one hundred and\ntwenty-nine dead or wounded. The people received him as a conqueror\nreturning with victory. His youth and splendid valor aroused the\nenthusiasm of the whole country. Wherever he went crowds flocked to\nsee him as the hero of \u201cHoly Thursday\u2019s Battle.\u201d Especially was he\nthe young people\u2019s idol. Sailor that he was, he was \u201cthe friend of\nall pretty girls,\u201d sang the poet of that day. He danced and made\nmerry with them, but the one of them all on whom his heart was set,\nso runs the story, would have none of him, and sent him away to\nforeign parts, a saddened lover.\n\nMeanwhile much praise had not made him vain. \u201cI did my duty,\u201d he\nwrote to his father, a minor government official in the city of\nOdense where four years later Hans Christian Andersen was born on\nthe anniversary day of the battle, \u201cand I have whole limbs which I\nleast expected. The Crown Prince and the Admiral have said that I\nbehaved well.\u201d He was to have one more opportunity of fighting his\ncountry\u2019s enemy, and this time to the death.\n\nIn the summer of 1807, England was advised that by the treaty of\nTilsit Russia and Prussia had secretly joined Napoleon in his\npurpose of finally crushing his mortal enemy by uniting all the\nfleets of Europe against her, Denmark\u2019s too, by compulsion if\npersuasion failed. Without warning a British fleet swooped down\nupon the unsuspecting nation, busy with the pursuits of peace,\nbombarded and burned Copenhagen when the Commandant refused to\ndeliver the ships into the hands of the robbers as a \u201cpledge of\npeace,\u201d and carried away ships, supplies, even the carpenters\u2019\ntools in the navy-yard. Nothing was spared. Seventy vessels,\nsixteen of them ships of the line, fell into their hands, and\nsupplies that filled ninety-two transports beside. A single\nfighting ship was left to Denmark of all her fleet,\u2014the _Prince\nChristian Frederik_ of sixty-eight guns. She happened to be away in\na Norwegian port and so escaped. Willemoes was on leave serving in\nthe Russian navy, but hastened home when news came of the burning\nof Copenhagen, and found a berth under Captain Jessen.\n\nOn March 22, 1808, the _Prince Christian_, so she was popularly\ncalled, hunting a British frigate that was making Danish waters\ninsecure, met in the Kattegat the _Stately_ and the _Nassau_,\neach like herself of sixty-eight guns. The _Nassau_ was the old\n_Holsteen_, renamed,\u2014the single prize the victors had carried home\nfrom the battle of Copenhagen. Three British frigates were working\nup to join them. The coast of Seeland was near, but wind and tide\ncut off escape to the Sound. Captain Jessen ran his ship in close\nunder the shore so that at the last he might beach her, and awaited\nthe enemy there.\n\nThe sun had set, but the night was clear when the fight between the\nthree ships began. With one on either side, hardly a pistol-shot\naway, Jessen returned shot for shot, giving as good as they sent,\nand with such success that at the end of an hour and a half the\nBritons dropped astern to make repairs. The _Prince Christian_\ndrifted, helpless, with rudder shot to pieces, half a wreck,\nrigging all gone, and a number of her guns demolished. But when the\nenemy returned he was hailed with a cheer and a broadside, and the\nfight was on once more. This time they were three to one; one of\nthe British frigates of forty-four guns had come up and joined in.\n\nWhen the hull of the _Prince Christian_ was literally knocked to\npieces, and of her 576 men 69 lay dead and 137 wounded, including\nthe chief and all of his officers who were yet alive, Captain\nJessen determined as a last desperate chance to run one of his\nopponents down and board her with what remained of his crew. But\nhis officers showed him that it was impossible; the ship could not\nbe man\u0153uvred. There was a momentary lull in the fire and out of\nthe night came a cry, \u201cStrike your colors!\u201d The Danish reply was a\nhurrah and a volley from all the standing guns. Three broad-sides\ncrashed into the doomed ship in quick succession, and the battle\nwas over. The _Prince Christian_ stood upon the shore, a wreck.\n\nYoung Willemoes was spared the grief of seeing the last Danish\nman-of-war strike its flag. In the hottest of the fight, as he\njumped upon a gun the better to locate the enemy in the gloom, a\ncannon-ball took off the top of his head. He fell into the arms\nof a fellow officer with the muttered words, \u201cOh God! my head\u2014my\ncountry!\u201d and was dead. In his report of the fight Captain Jessen\nwrote against his name: \u201cFell in battle\u2014honored as he is missed.\u201d\nThey made his grave on shore with the fallen sailors, and as the\nsea washed up other bodies they were buried with them.\n\nThe British captured the wreck, but they could only set fire to it\nafter removing the wounded. In the night it blew up where it stood.\nThat was the end of the last ship of Denmark\u2019s proud navy.\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[13] It is of record that Queen Sofie Amalie used one-third of the\nannual revenues of the country for her household. The menu of a\nsingle \u201crustic dinner\u201d of the court mentions 200 courses and nearly\nas many kinds of preserves and dessert, served on gold, with wines\nin corresponding abundance.\n\n[14] The battle of Copenhagen was fought April 2, 1801.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR ALONE\n\n\nJens Kofoed was the name of a trooper who served in the disastrous\nwar of Denmark against Sweden in Karl Gustav\u2019s day. He came from\nthe island of Bornholm in the Baltic, where he tilled a farm in\ndays of peace. When his troop went into winter quarters, he got a\nfurlough to go home to receive the new baby that was expected about\nChristmas. Most of his comrades were going home for the holidays,\nand their captain made no objection. The Swedish king was fighting\nin far-off Poland, and no one dreamed that he would come over the\nice with his army in the depth of winter to reckon with Denmark. So\nJens Kofoed took ship with the promise that he would be back in two\nweeks. But they were to be two long weeks. They did not hear of him\nagain for many moons, and then strange tidings came of his doings.\nSingle-handed he had bearded the Swedish lion, and downed it in a\nfair fight\u2014strangest of all, almost without bloodshed.\n\nThe winter storms blew hard, and it was Christmas eve when he made\nland, but he came in time to receive, not one new heir, but twin\nbaby girls. Then there were six of them, counting Jens and his\nwife, and a merry Christmas they all had together. On Twelfth Night\nthe little ones were christened, and then the trooper bethought\nhimself of his promise to get back soon. The storms had ceased, but\nworse had befallen; the sea was frozen over as far as eye reached,\nand the island was cut off from all communication with the outer\nworld. There was nothing for it but to wait. It proved the longest\nand hardest winter any one then living could remember. Easter was\nat hand before the ice broke up, and let a fishing smack slip\nover to Ystad, on the mainland. It came back with news that set\nthe whole island wondering. Peace had been made, and Denmark had\nceded all its ancient provinces east of the \u00d6resund to Karl Gustav.\nYstad itself and Skaane, the province in which Jens Kofoed had been\ncampaigning, were Swedish now, and so was Bornholm. All unknown\nto its people, the island had changed hands in the game of war\novernight, as it were. A Swedish garrison was coming over presently\nto take charge.\n\nWhen Jens Kofoed heard it, he sat down and thought things over.\nIf there was peace, his old captain had no use for him, that was\ncertain; but there might be need of him at home. What would happen\nthere, no one could tell. And there were the wife and children to\ntake care of. The upshot of it all was that he stayed. Only, to be\non the safe side, he got the Burgomaster and the Aldermen in his\nhome town, Hasle, to set it down in writing that he could not have\ngot back to his troop for all he might have tried. Kofoed, it will\nbe seen, was a man with a head on his shoulders, which was well,\nfor presently he had need of it.\n\nThere were no Danish soldiers in the island, only a peasant\nmilitia, ill-armed and untaught in the ways of war; so no one\nthought of resisting the change of masters. The people simply\nwaited to see what would happen. Along in May a company of one\nhundred and twenty men with four guns landed, and took possession\nof Castle Hammershus, on the north shore, the only stronghold on\nthe island, in the name of the Swedish king. Colonel Printzensk\u00f6ld,\nwho had command, summoned the islanders to a meeting, and told them\nthat he had come to be their governor. They were to obey him, and\nthat was all. The people listened and said nothing.\n\nPerhaps if the new rulers had been wise, things might have kept\non so. The people would have tilled their farms, and paid their\ntaxes, and Jens Kofoed, with all his hot hatred of the enemy he\nhad fought, might never have been heard of outside his own island.\nBut the Swedish soldiers had been through the Thirty Years\u2019 War\nand plunder had become their profession. They rioted in the towns,\ndoubled the taxes, put an embargo on trade and export, crushed the\nindustries; worse, they took the young men and sent them away to\nKarl Gustav\u2019s wars in foreign lands. They left only the old men and\nthe boys, and these last they kept a watchful eye on for drafts in\ndays to come. When the conscripts hid in the woods, so as not to\nbe torn from their wives and sweethearts, they organized regular\nman-hunts as if the quarry were wild beasts, and, indeed, the poor\nfellows were not treated much better when caught.\n\nAll summer they did as they pleased; then came word that Karl\nGustav had broken the peace he made, and of the siege of\nCopenhagen. The news made the people sit up and take notice. Their\nrightful sovereign had ceded the island to the Swedish king, that\nwas one thing. But now that they were at war again, these strangers\nwho persecuted them were the public enemy. It was time something\nwere done. In Hasle there was a young parson with his heart in the\nright place, Poul Anker by name. Jens Kofoed sat in his church; he\nhad been to the wars, and was fit to take command. Also, the two\nwere friends. Presently a web of conspiracy spread quietly through\nthe island, gripping priest and peasant, skipper and trader,\nalike. Its purpose was to rout out the Swedes. The Hasle trooper\nand parson were the leaders; but their secret was well kept. With\nthe tidings that the Dutch fleet had forced its way through to\nCopenhagen with aid for the besieged, and had bottled the Swedish\nships up in Landskrona, came a letter purporting to be from King\nFrederik himself, encouraging the people to rise. It was passed\nsecretly from hand to hand by the underground route, and found the\nisland ready for rebellion.\n\nGovernor Printzensk\u00f6ld had seen something brewing, but he was a\nfearless man, and despised the \u201cpeasant mob.\u201d However, he sent to\nSweden for a troop of horsemen, the better to patrol the island\nand watch the people. Early in December, 1658, just a year after\nJens Kofoed, the trooper, had set out for his home on furlough, the\ngovernor went to R\u00f6nne, the chief city in the island, to start off\na ship for the re\u00ebnforcements. The conspirators sought to waylay\nhim at Hasle, where he stopped to give warning that all who had not\npaid the heavy war-tax would be sold out forthwith; but they were\ntoo late. Master Poul and Jens Kofoed rode after him, expecting\nto meet a band of their fellows on the way, but missed them. The\nparson stayed behind then to lay the fuse to the mine, while Kofoed\nkept on to town. By the time he got there he had been joined by\nfour others, Aage Svends\u00f6n, Klavs Nielsen, Jens Laurss\u00f6n, and Niels\nGummel\u00f6se. The last two were town officers. As soon as the report\nwent around R\u00f6nne that they had come, Burgomaster Klaus Kam went to\nthem openly.\n\nThe governor had ridden to the house of the other burgomaster, Per\nLarss\u00f6n, who was not in the plot. His horse was tied outside and he\njust sitting down to supper when Jens Kofoed and his band crowded\ninto the room, and took him prisoner. They would have killed him\nthere, but his host pleaded for his life. However, when they took\nhim out in the street, Printzensk\u00f6ld thought he saw a chance to\nescape in the crowd and the darkness, and sprang for his horse. But\nhis great size made him an easy mark. He was shot through the head\nas he ran. The man who shot him had loaded his pistol with a silver\nbutton torn from his vest. That was sure death to any goblin on\nwhom neither lead nor steel would bite, and it killed the governor\nall right. The place is marked to this day in the pavement of the\nmain street as the spot where fell the only tyrant who ever ruled\nthe island against the people\u2019s will.\n\nThe die was cast now, and there was need of haste. Under cover of\nthe night the little band rode through the island with the news,\nringing the church bells far and near to call the people to arms.\nMany were up and waiting; Master Poul had roused them already. At\nHammershus the Swedish garrison heard the clamor, and wondered\nwhat it meant. They found out when at sunrise an army of half\nthe population thundered on the castle gates summoning them to\nsurrender. Burgomaster Kam sat among them on the governor\u2019s horse,\nwearing his uniform, and shouted to the officers in command that\nunless they surrendered, he, the governor, would be killed, and\nhis head sent in to his wife in the castle. The frightened woman\u2019s\ntears decided the day. The garrison surrendered, only to discover\nthat they had been tricked. Jens Kofoed took command in the castle.\nThe Swedish soldiers were set to doing chores for the farmers\nthey had so lately harassed. The ship that was to have fetched\nre\u00ebnforcements from Sweden was sent to Denmark instead, with the\nheartening news. They needed that kind there just then.\n\nBut the ex-trooper, now Commandant, knew that a day of reckoning\nwas coming, and kept a sharp lookout. When the hostile ship _Spes_\nwas reported steering in from the sea, the flag of Sweden flew from\nthe peak of Hammershus, and nothing on land betrayed that there\nhad been a change. As soon as she anchored, a boat went out with\nan invitation from the governor to any officers who might be on\nboard, to come ashore and arrange for the landing of the troops.\nThe captain of the ship and the major in charge came, and were made\nprisoners as soon as they had them where they could not be seen\nfrom the ship. It blew up to a storm, and the _Spes_ was obliged\nto put to sea, but as soon as she returned boats were sent out to\nland the soldiers. They sent only little skiffs that could hold\nnot over three or four, and as fast as they were landed they were\noverpowered and bound. Half of the company had been thus disposed\nof when the lieutenant on board grew suspicious, and sent word that\nwithout the express orders of the major no more would come. But\nJens Kofoed\u2019s wit was equal to the emergency. The next boat brought\nan invitation to the lieutenant to come in and have breakfast\nwith the officers, who would give him his orders there. He walked\ninto the trap; but when he also failed to return, his men refused\nto follow. He had arranged to send them a sign, they said, that\neverything was all right. If it did not come, they would sail away\nto Sweden for help.\n\nIt took some little persuasion to make the lieutenant tell about\nthe sign, but in the end Jens Kofoed got it. It turned out to be\nhis pocket-knife. When they saw that, the rest came, and were put\nunder lock and key with their fellows.\n\nThe ship was left. If that went back, all was lost. Happily\nboth captain and mate were prisoners ashore. Four boat-loads of\nislanders, with arms carefully stowed under the seats, went out\nwith the mate of the _Spes_, who was given to understand that if he\nas much as opened his mouth he would be a dead man. They boarded\nthe ship, taking the crew by surprise. By night the last enemy\nwas comfortably stowed, and the ship on her way to R\u00f6nne, where\nthe prisoners were locked in the court-house cellar, with shotted\nguns guarding the door. Perhaps it was the cruelties practised by\nSwedish troops in Denmark that preyed upon the mind of Jens Kofoed\nwhen he sent the parson to prepare them for death then and there;\nbut better counsel prevailed. They were allowed to live. The whole\nwar cost only two lives, the governor\u2019s and that of a sentinel at\nthe castle, who refused to surrender. The mate of the _Spes_ and\ntwo of her crew contrived to escape after they had been taken to\nCopenhagen, and from them Karl Gustav had the first tidings of how\nhe lost the island.\n\nThe captured ship sailed down to Copenhagen with greeting to King\nFrederik that the people of Bornholm had chosen him and his heirs\nforever to rule over them, on condition that their island was never\nto be separated from the Danish Crown. The king in his delight\npresented them with a fine silver cup, and made Jens Kofoed captain\nof the island, beside giving him a handsome estate. He lived\nthirty-three years after that, the patriarch of his people, and\nraised a large family of children. Not a few of his descendants are\nto-day living in the United States. In the home of one of them in\nBrooklyn, New York, is treasured a silver drinking cup which King\nFrederik gave to the ex-trooper; but it is not the one he sent back\nwith his deputation. That one is still in the island of Bornholm.\n\n\n\n\nCARL LINN\u00c9, KING OF THE FLOWERS\n\n\nYears ago there grew on the Jonsboda farm in Smaland, Sweden, a\nlinden tree that was known far and wide for its great age and\nsize. So beautiful and majestic was the tree, and so wide the\nreach of its spreading branches, that all the countryside called\nit sacred. Misfortune was sure to come if any one did it injury.\nSo thought the people. It was not strange, then, that the farmer\u2019s\nboys, when they grew to be learned men and chose a name, should\ncall themselves after the linden. The peasant folk had no family\nnames in those days. Sven Carlsson was Sven, the son of Carl; and\nhis son, if his given name were John, would be John Svensson. So\nit had always been. But when a man could make a name for himself\nout of the big dictionary, that was his right. The daughter of the\nJonsboda farmer married; and her son played in the shadow of the\nold tree, and grew so fond of it that when he went out to preach\nhe also called himself after it. Nils Ingemarsson was the name he\nreceived in baptism, and to that he added Linn\u00e6us, never dreaming\nthat in doing it he handed down the name and the fame of the friend\nof his play hours to all coming days. But it was so; for Parson\nNils\u2019 eldest son, Carl Linn\u00e9, or Linn\u00e6us, became a great man who\nbrought renown to his country and his people by telling them and\nall the world more than any one had ever known before about the\ntrees and the flowers. The King knighted him for his services to\nscience, and the people of every land united in acclaiming him the\nfather of botany and the king of the flowers.\n\nThey were the first things he learned to love in his baby world. If\nhe was cross, they had but to lay him on the grass in the garden\nand put a daisy in his hand, and he would croon happily over it for\nhours. He was four years old when his father took him to a wedding\nin the neighborhood. The men guests took a tramp over the farm, and\nin the twilight they sat and rested in the meadow, where the spring\nflowers grew. The minister began telling them stories about them;\nhow they all had their own names and what powers for good or ill\nthe apothecary found in the leaves and root of some of them. Carl\u2019s\nfather, though barely out of college, was a bright and gifted man.\nOne of his parishioners said once that they couldn\u2019t afford a whole\nparson, and so they took a young one; but if that was the way of\nit, the men of Stenbrohult made a better bargain than they knew.\nThey sat about listening to his talk, but no one listened more\nclosely than little Carl. After that he had thought for nothing\nelse. In the corner of the garden he had a small plot of his own,\nand into it he planted all the wild flowers from the fields, and he\nasked many more questions about them than his father could answer.\nOne day he came back with one whose name he had forgotten. The\nminister was busy with his sermon.\n\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t remember,\u201d he said impatiently, \u201cI will never tell\nyou the name of another flower.\u201d The boy went away, his eyes wide\nwith terror at the threat; but after that he did not forget a\nsingle name.\n\nWhen he was big enough, they sent him to the Latin school at Wexi\u00f6,\nwhere the other boys nicknamed him \u201cthe little botanist.\u201d His\nthoughts were outdoors when they should have been in the dry books,\nand his teachers set him down as a dunce. They did not know that\nhis real study days were when, in vacation, he tramped the thirty\nmiles to his home. Every flower and every tree along the way was\nan old friend, and he was glad to see them again. Once in a while\nhe found a book that told of plants, and then he was anything but\na dunce. But when his father, after Carl had been eight years in\nthe school, asked his teachers what they thought of him, they told\nhim flatly that he might make a good tailor or shoemaker, but a\nminister\u2014never; he was too stupid.\n\nThat was a blow, for the parson of Stenbrohult and his wife had set\ntheir hearts on making a minister of Carl, and small wonder. His\nmother was born in the parsonage, and her father and grandfather\nhad been shepherds of the parish all their lives. There were tears\nin the good minister\u2019s eyes as he told Carl to pack up and get\nready to go back home; he had an errand at Dr. Rothman\u2019s, but would\nreturn presently. The good doctor saw that his patient was heavy\nof heart and asked him what was wrong. When he heard what Carl\u2019s\nteachers had said, he flashed out:\n\n\u201cWhat! he not amount to anything? There is not one in the whole\nlot who will go as far as he. A minister he won\u2019t be, that I\u2019ll\nallow, but I shall make a doctor of him such as none of them ever\nsaw. You leave him here with me.\u201d And the parson did, comforted in\nspite of himself. But Carl\u2019s mother could not get over it. It was\nthat garden, she declared, and when his younger brother as much as\nsquinted that way, she flew at him with a \u201cYou dare to touch it!\u201d\nand shook him.\n\nWhen Dr. Rothman thought his pupil ready for the university, he\nsent him up to Lund, and the head-master of the Latin School gave\nhim the letter he must bring, to be admitted. \u201cBoys at school,\u201d he\nwrote in it, \u201cmay be likened to young trees in orchard nurseries,\nwhere it sometimes happens that here and there among the saplings\nthere are some that make little growth, or even appear as wild\nseedlings, giving no promise; but when afterwards transplanted to\nthe orchard, make a start, branch out freely, and at last yield\nsatisfactory fruit.\u201d By good luck, though, Carl ran across an old\nteacher from Wexi\u00f6, one of the few who had believed in him and was\nglad to see him. He took him to the Rector and introduced him with\nwarm words of commendation, and also found him lodgings under the\nroof of Dr. Kilian Stob\u00e6us.\n\nDr. Stob\u00e6us was a physician of renown, but not good company. He was\none-eyed, sickly, lame in one foot, and a gloomy hypochondriac to\nboot. Being unable to get around to his patients, he always had one\nor two students to do the running for him and to learn as best they\nmight, in doing it. Carl found a young German installed there as\nthe doctor\u2019s right hand. He also found a library full of books on\nbotany, a veritable heaven for him. But the gate was shut against\nhim; the doctor had the key, and he saw nothing in the country lad\nbut a needy student of no account. Perhaps the Rector had passed\nthe head-master\u2019s letter along. However, love laughs at locksmiths,\nand Carl Linn\u00e6us was hopelessly in love with his flowers. He got on\nthe right side of the German by helping him over some hard stiles\nin the _materia medica_. In return, his fellow student brought him\nbooks out of the library when the doctor had gone to bed, and Carl\nsat up studying the big tomes till early cockcrow. Before the house\nstirred, the books were back on their shelves, the door locked, and\nno one was the wiser.\n\nNo one except the doctor\u2019s old mother, whose room was across the\nyard. She did not sleep well, and all night she saw the window\nlighted in her neighbor\u2019s room. She told the doctor that Carl\nLinn\u00e6us fell asleep with the candle burning every single night, and\nsometime he would upset it and they would all be burned in their\nbeds. The doctor nodded grimly; he knew the young scamps. No doubt\nthey both sat up playing cards till dawn; but he would teach them.\nAnd the very next morning, at two o\u2019clock, up he stumped on his\nlame foot to Carl\u2019s room, in which there was light, sure enough,\nand went in without knocking.\n\nCarl was so deep in his work that he did not hear him at all, and\nthe doctor stole up unperceived and looked over his shoulder. There\nlay his precious books, which he thought safely locked in the\nlibrary, spread out before him, and his pupil was taking notes and\ncopying drawings as if his life depended upon it. He gave a great\nstart when Dr. Stob\u00e6us demanded what he was doing, but owned up\nfrankly, while the doctor frowned and turned over his notes, leaf\nby leaf.\n\n\u201cGo to bed and sleep like other people,\u201d he said gruffly, yet\nkindly, when he had heard it all, \u201cand hereafter study in the\ndaytime;\u201d and he not only gave him a key to his library, but took\nhim to his own table after that. Up till then Carl had merely been\na lodger in the house.\n\nWhen he was at last on the home stretch, as it seemed, an accident\ncame near upsetting it all. He was stung by an adder on one of his\nbotanizing excursions, so far from home and help that the bite\ncame near proving fatal. However, Dr. Stob\u00e6us\u2019 skill pulled him\nthrough, and in after years he got square by labelling the serpent\n_furia infernalis_\u2014hell-fury\u2014in his natural history. It was his way\nof fighting back. All through his life he never wasted an hour on\ncontroversy. He had no time, he said. But once when a rival made\na particularly nasty attack upon him, he named a new plant after\nhim, adding the descriptive adjective _detestabilis_\u2014the detestable\nso-and-so. On the whole, he had the best of it; for the names he\ngave stuck.\n\nIt was during his vacation after the year at Lund that Linn\u00e6us made\na catalogue of the plants in his father\u2019s garden at Stenbrohult\nthat shows us the country parson as no mean botanist himself; for\nin the list, which is preserved in the Academy of Sciences at\nStockholm, are no less than two hundred and twenty-four kinds of\nplants. Among them are six American plants that had found their\nway to Sweden. The poison ivy is there, though what they wanted\nof that is hard to tell, and the four-o\u2019clock, the pokeweed, the\nmilkweed, the pearly everlasting, and the potato, which was then\n(1732) classed as a rare plant. Not until twenty years later did\nthey begin to grow it for food in Sweden.\n\nWhen Carl Linn\u00e6us went up to Upsala University, his parents had so\nfar got over their disappointment at his deserting the ministry\nthat they gave him a little money to make a start with; but they\nlet him know that no more was coming\u2014their pocket-book was empty.\nAnd within the twelvemonth, for all his scrimping and saving,\nhe was on the point of starvation. He tells us himself that he\ndepended on chance for a meal and wore his fellow students\u2019\ncast-off clothes. His boots were without soles, and in his\ncheerless attic room he patched them with birch bark and card board\nas well as he could. He was now twenty-three years old, and it\nseemed as if he would have to give up the study that gave him no\nbread; but still he clung to his beloved flowers. They often made\nhim forget the pangs of hunger. And when the cloud was darkest the\nsun broke through. He was sitting in the Botanical Garden sketching\na plant, when Dean Celsius, a great orientalist and theologian of\nhis day, passed by. The evident poverty of the young man, together\nwith his deep absorption in his work, arrested his attention; he\nsat down and talked with him. In five minutes Carl had found a\nfriend and the Dean a helper. He had been commissioned to write a\nbook on the plants of the Holy Land and had collected a botanical\nlibrary for the purpose, but the work lagged. Here now was the one\nwho could help set it going. That day Linn\u00e6us left his attic room\nand went to live in the Dean\u2019s house. His days of starvation were\nover.\n\nIn the Dean\u2019s employ his organizing genius developed the marvellous\nskill of the cataloguer that brought order out of the chaos of\ngroping and guessing and blundering in which the science of botany\nhad floundered up till then. Here and there in it all were flashes\nof the truth, which Linn\u00e6us laid hold of and pinned down with his\nown knowledge to system and order. Thus the Frenchman, Sebastian\nVaillant, who had died a dozen years before, had suggested a\nclassification of flowers by their seed-bearing organs, the stamens\nand pistils, instead of by their fruits, the number of their\npetals, or even by their color, as had been the vague practice of\nthe past. Linn\u00e6us seized upon this as the truer way and wrote a\nbrief treatise developing the idea, which so pleased Dr. Celsius\nthat he got his young friend a license to lecture publicly in the\nBotanical Garden.\n\nThe students flocked to hear him. His message was one that put life\nand soul into the dry bones of a science that had only wearied them\nbefore. The professor of botany himself sat in the front row and\nhammered the floor with his cane in approval. But his very success\nwas the lecturer\u2019s undoing. Envy grew in place of the poverty he\nhad conquered. The instructor, Nils Ros\u00e9n, was abroad taking his\ndoctor\u2019s degree. He came home to find his lectures deserted for the\nirresponsible teachings of a mere undergraduate. He made grievous\ncomplaint, and Linn\u00e6us was silenced, to his great good luck. For\nso his friend the professor, though he was unable to break the red\ntape of the university, got him an appointment to go to Lapland on\na botanical mission. His enemies were only too glad to see him go.\n\nLinn\u00e6us travelled more than three thousand miles that summer\nthrough a largely unknown country, enduring, he tells us, more\nhardships and dangers than in all his subsequent travels. Again\nand again he nearly lost his life in swollen mountain streams, for\nhe would not wait until danger from the spring freshets was over.\nOnce he was shot at as he was gathering plants on a hillside,\nbut happily the Finn who did it was not a good marksman. Fish\nand reindeer milk were his food, a pestilent plague of flies his\nworst trouble. But, he says in his account of the trip, which is\nas fascinating a report of a scientific expedition as was ever\npenned, they were good for something, after all, for the migrating\nbirds fed on them. From his camps on lake or river bank he saw the\nwater covered far and near with swarms of ducks and geese. The\nLaplander\u2019s larder was easily stocked.\n\nHe came back from the dangers of the wild with a reputation that\nwas clinched by his book \u201cThe Flora of Lapland,\u201d to find the dragon\nof professional jealousy rampant still at Upsala. His enemy,\nRos\u00e9n, persuaded the senate of the university to adopt a rule that\nno un-degreed man should lecture there to the prejudice of the\nregularly appointed instructors. Tradition has it that Linn\u00e6us flew\ninto a passion at that and drew upon Ros\u00e9n, and there might have\nbeen one regular less but for the interference of bystanders. It\nmay be true, though it is not like him. Men wore side-arms in those\ndays just as some people carry pistols in their hip-pockets to-day,\nand with as little sense. At least they had the defence, such as it\nwas, that it was the fashion. However, it made an end of Linn\u00e6us\nat Upsala for the time. He sought a professorship at Lund, but\nanother got it. Then he led an expedition of his former students\ninto the Dalecarlia mountains and so he got to Falun, where Baron\nReuterholm, one of Sweden\u2019s copper magnates, was seeking a guide\nfor his two sons through the region where his mines were.\n\nLinn\u00e6us was not merely a botanist, but an all around expert in\nnatural science. He took charge of the boys and, when the trip\nwas ended, started a school at Falun, where he taught mineralogy.\nIt had been hit or miss with the miners up till then. There was\nneither science nor system in their work. What every day experience\nor the test of fire had taught a prospector, in delving among the\nrocks, was all there was of it. Linn\u00e6us was getting things upon a\nscientific basis, when he met and fell in love with the handsome\ndaughter of Dr. Mor\u00e6us. The young people would marry, but the\ndoctor, though he liked the mineralogist, would not hear of it till\nhe could support a wife. So he gave him three years in which to go\nabroad and get a degree that would give him the right to practise\nmedicine anywhere in Sweden. The doctor\u2019s daughter gave him a\nhundred dollars she had saved, and her promise to wait for him.\n\nHe went to Harderwyk in Holland and got his degree at the\nuniversity there on the strength of a thesis on the cause of\nmalarial fever, with the conclusions of which the learned doctors\ndid not agree; but they granted the diploma for the clever way\nin which he defended it. On the way down he tarried in Hamburg\nlong enough to give the good burghers a severe jolt. They had a\nseven-headed serpent that was one of the wonders of the town. The\nkeen sight of the young naturalist detected the fraud at once;\nthe heads were weasels\u2019 heads, covered with serpent\u2019s skin and\ncunningly sewed on the head of the reptile. The shape of the jaws\nbetrayed the trick. But the Hamburgers were not grateful. The\nserpent was an asset. There was a mortgage on it of ten thousand\nmarks; now it was not worth a hundred. They took it very ill, and\nLinn\u00e6us found himself suddenly so unpopular that he was glad to get\nout of town overnight. What became of the serpent history does not\nrecord.\n\nLinn\u00e6us had carried more than his thesis on malarial fever with him\nto Holland. At the bottom of his trunk were the manuscripts of two\nbooks on botany which, he told his sweetheart on parting, would yet\nmake him famous. Probably she shook her head at that. Pills and\npowders, and broken legs to set, were more to her way of thinking,\nand her father\u2019s, too. If only he had patients, fame might take\ncare of itself. But now he put them both to shame. At Leyden he\nfound friends who brought out his first book, \u201cSystema Natur\u00e6,\u201d in\nwhich he divides all nature into the three kingdoms known to every\nchild since. It was hardly more than a small pamphlet, but it laid\nthe foundation for his later fame. To the enlarged tenth edition\nzo\u00f6logists point back to this day as to the bed-rock on which they\nbuilt their science. The first was quickly followed by another, and\nyet another. Seven large volumes bearing his name had come from the\npress before he set sail for home, a whole library in botany, and a\nnew botany at that, so simple and sensible that the world adopted\nit at once.\n\nDr. Hermann Boerhaave was at that time the most famous physician in\nEurope. He was also the greatest authority on systematic botany.\nGreat men flocked to his door, but the testy old Dutchman let them\nwait until it suited him to receive them. Peter the Great had to\ncool his heels in his waiting-room two long hours before his turn\ncame. Linn\u00e6us he would not see at all\u2014until he sent him a copy of\nhis book. Then he shut the door against all others and summoned\nthe author. The two walked through his garden, and the old doctor\npointed proudly to a tree which was very rare, he said, and not\nin any of the books. Yes, said Linn\u00e6us, it was in Vaillant\u2019s. The\ndoctor knew better; he had annotated Vaillant\u2019s botany himself, and\nit was not there. Linn\u00e6us insisted, and the doctor, in a temper,\nwent for the book to show him. But there it was; Linn\u00e6us was\nright. Nothing would do then but he must stay in Holland. Linn\u00e6us\ndemurred; he could not afford it. But Dr. Boerhaave knew a way out\nof that. He had for a patient Burgomaster Cliffort, a rich old\nhypochondriac with whom he could do nothing because he would insist\non living high and taking too little exercise. When he came again\nhe told him that what he needed was a physician in daily attendance\nupon him, and handed him over to Linn\u00e6us.\n\n\u201cHe will fix your diet and fix your garden, too,\u201d was his\nprescription. The Burgomaster was a famous collector and had a\nwondrous garden that was the apple of his eye. He took Linn\u00e6us\ninto his house and gave him a ducat a day for writing his menu and\ncataloguing his collection. That was where his books grew, and the\nbiggest and finest of them was \u201cHortus Cliffortianus,\u201d the account\nof his patron\u2019s garden.\n\nArmed with letters from Dr. Boerhaave and the Burgomaster, he took\none stronghold of professional prejudice after another. Not without\na siege. One of them refused flatly to surrender. That was Sir Hans\nSloan, the great English naturalist, to whom Dr. Boerhaave wrote\nin a letter that is preserved in the British Museum: \u201cLinn\u00e6us, who\nbears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of\nbeing seen by you. He who shall see you both together shall see two\nmen whose like will scarce ever be found in the world.\u201d And the\ndoctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of\nPeter the Great. But the aged baronet had had his own way so long,\nand was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do\nwith Linn\u00e6us. At Oxford the learned professor Dillenius received\nhim with no better grace. \u201cThis,\u201d he said aside to a friend, \u201cis\nthe young man who confounds all botany,\u201d and he took him rather\nreluctantly into his garden. A plant that was new to him attracted\nLinn\u00e6us\u2019 attention and he asked to what family it belonged.\n\n\u201cThat is more than you can tell me,\u201d was the curt answer.\n\n\u201cI can, if you will let me pluck a flower and examine it.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo, and be welcome,\u201d said the professor, and his visitor after\na brief glance at the flower told its species correctly. The\nprofessor stared.\n\n\u201cNow,\u201d said Linn\u00e6us, who had kept his eyes open, \u201cwhat did you mean\nby the crosses you had put all through my book?\u201d He had seen it\nlying on the professor\u2019s table, all marked up.\n\n\u201cThey mark the errors you made,\u201d declared the other.\n\n\u201cSuppose we see about that,\u201d said the younger man and, taking\nthe book, led the way. They examined the flowers together, and\nwhen they returned to the study all the pride had gone out of the\nprofessor. He kept Linn\u00e6us with him a month, never letting him out\nof his sight and, when he left, implored him with tears to stay and\nshare his professorship; the pay was enough for both.\n\nA letter that reached him from home on his return to Holland made\nhim realize with a start that he had overstayed his leave. It was\nnow in the fourth year since he had left Sweden. All the while he\nhad written to his sweetheart in the care of a friend who proved\nfalse. He wanted her for himself and, when the three years had\npassed, told her that Carl would never come back. Dr. Mor\u00e6us was\nof the same mind, and had not a real friend of the absent lover\nturned up in the nick of time Linn\u00e6us would probably have stayed a\nDutchman to his death. Now, on the urgent message of his friend, he\nhastened home, found his Elisabeth holding out yet, married her and\nsettled down in Stockholm to practise medicine.\n\nFamous as he had become, he found the first stretch of the row at\nhome a hard one to hoe. His books brought him no income. Nobody\nwould employ him, \u201ceven for a sick servant,\u201d he complained. Envious\nrivals assailed him and his botany, and there were days when\nherring and black bread was fare not to be despised in Dr. Linn\u00e6us\u2019\nhousehold. But he kept pegging away and his luck changed. One\nwell-to-do patient brought another, and at last the queen herself\nwas opportunely seized with a bad cough. She saw one of her ladies\ntake a pill and asked what it was. Dr. Linn\u00e6us\u2019 prescription for\na cold, she said, and it always cured her right up. So the doctor\nwas called to the castle and his cure worked there, too. Not long\nafter that he set down in his diary that \u201cNow, no one can get well\nwithout my help.\u201d\n\nBut he was not happy. \u201cOnce, I had flowers and no money,\u201d he\nsaid; \u201cnow, I have money and no flowers.\u201d That they appointed him\nprofessor of medicine at Upsala did not mend matters. His lectures\nwere popular and full of common sense. Diet and the simple life\nwere his hobbies, temperance in all things. He ever insisted that\nwhere one man dies from drinking too much, ten die from overeating.\nChildren should eat four times a day, grown-ups twice, was his\nrule. The foolish fashions and all luxury he abhorred. He himself\nin his most famous years lived so plainly that some said he was\nmiserly, and his clothes were sometimes almost shabby. The happiest\nday of his life came when he and his old enemy Ros\u00e9n, whom he found\nfilling the chair of botany at the university, and with whom he\nmade it up soon after they became fellow members of the faculty,\nexchanged chairs with the ready consent of the authorities. So, at\nlast, Linn\u00e6us had attained the place he coveted above all others,\nand the goal of his ambition was reached.\n\nHe lived at Upsala thirty-seven years and wrote many books. His\nstudents idolized him. They came from all over the world. Twice a\nweek in summer, on Wednesday and Saturday, they sallied forth with\nhim to botanize in field and forest, and when they had collected\nspecimens all the long day they escorted the professor home through\nthe twilight streets with drums and trumpets and with flowers\nin their hats. But however late they left him at his door, the\nearliest dawn saw him up and at his work, for the older he grew the\nmore precious the hours that remained. In summer he was accustomed\nto rise at three o\u2019clock; in the dark winter days at six.\n\nHe found biology a chaos and left it a science. In his special\nfield of botany he was not, as some think, the first. He himself\ncatalogued fully a thousand books on his topic. But he brought\norder into it; he took what was good and, rejecting the false,\nfashioned it into a workable system. In the mere matter of\nnomenclature, his way of calling plants, like men, by a family name\nand a given name wrought a change hard to appreciate in our day.\nThe common blue grass of our lawns, for instance, he called, and we\ncall it still, _Poa pratensis_. Up to his time it had three names\nand one of them was _Gramen pratense paniculatum majus latiore\nfolio poa theophrasti_. Dr. Rydberg, of the New York Botanical\nGardens, said aptly at the bicentenary of his birth, that it was\nas if instead of calling a girl Grace Darling one were to say \u201cMr.\nDarling\u2019s beautiful, slender, graceful, blue-eyed girl with long,\ngolden curls and rosy cheeks.\u201d\n\nThe binomial system revolutionized the science. What the lines\nof longitude and latitude did for geography Linn\u00e6us\u2019 genius did\nfor botany. And he did not let pride of achievement persuade him\nthat he had said the last word. He knew his system to be the best\ntill some one should find a better, and said so. The King gave him\na noble name and he was proud of it with reason\u2014vain, some have\nsaid. But vanity did not make the creature deny the Creator. He\never tried to trace science to its author. When the people were\nfrightened by the \u201cwater turning to blood\u201d and overzealous priests\ncried that it was a sign of the wrath of God, he showed under the\nmagnifying glass the presence of innumerable little animals that\ngave the water its reddish tinge, and thereby gave offence to some\npious souls. But over the door of his lecture room were the words\nin Latin: \u201cLive guiltless\u2014God sees you!\u201d and in his old age, seeing\nwith prophetic eye the day of bacteriology that dawned a hundred\nyears after his death, he thanked God that He had permitted him to\n\u201clook into His secret council room and workshop.\u201d\n\nHe was one of the clear thinkers of all days, uniting imagination\nwith sound sense. It was Linn\u00e6us who discovered that plants sleep\nlike animals. The Pope ordered that his books, wherever they were\nfound in his dominions, should be burned as materialistic and\nheretical; but Linn\u00e6us lived to see a professor in botany at Rome\ndismissed because he did not understand his system, and another put\nin his place who did, and whose lectures followed his theories.\nWhen he was seventy he was stricken with apoplexy, while lecturing\nto his students, and the last year of his life was full of misery.\n\u201cLinn\u00e6us limps,\u201d is one of the last entries in his diary, \u201ccan\nhardly walk, speaks unintelligibly, and is scarce able to write.\u201d\nDeath came on January 10, 1778.\n\nUnder the white flashes of the northern lights in the desolate land\nhe explored in his youth, there grows in the shelter of the spruce\nforests a flower which he found and loved beyond any other, the\n_Linn\u00e6a borealis_, named after him. In some pictures we have of\nhim, he is seen holding a sprig of it in his hand. It is the twin\nflower of the northern Pacific coast and of Labrador, indeed of the\nfar northern woods from Labrador all the way to Alaska, that lifts\nits delicate, sweet-scented pink bells from the moss with gentle\nappeal, \u201clong overlooked, lowly, flowering early\u201d despite cold and\nstorm, typical of the man himself.\n\n\n\n\nNIELS FINSEN, THE WOLF-SLAYER\n\n\nHard by the town of Thorshavn, in the Far\u00f6e islands, a little lad\nsat one day carving his name on a rock. His rough-coated pony\ncropped the tufts of stunted grass within call. The grim North\nSea beat upon the shore below. What thoughts of the great world\nwithout it stirred in the boy he never told. He came of a people\nto whom it called all through the ages with a summons that rarely\nwent unheeded. If he heard he gave no sign. Slowly and laboriously\nhe traced in the stone the letters N.R.F. When he had finished he\nsurveyed his work with a quiet smile. \u201cThere!\u201d he said, \u201cthat is\ndone.\u201d\n\nThe years went by, and a distant city paused in its busy life to\nhearken to bells tolling for one who lay dead. Kings and princes\nwalked behind his coffin and a whole people mourned. Yet in life he\nhad worn no purple. He was a plain, even a poor man. Upon his grave\nthey set a rock brought from the island in the North Sea, just like\nthe other that stands there yet, and in it they hewed the letters\nN.R.F., for the man and the boy were one. And he who spoke there\nsaid for all mankind that what he wrought was well done, for it was\ndone bravely and in love.\n\nNiels Ryberg Finsen was born in 1860 in the Far\u00f6e islands, where\nhis father was an official under the Danish Government. His family\ncame of the sturdy old Iceland stock that comes down to our time\nunshorn of its strength from the day of the vikings, and back to\nIceland his people sent him to get his education in the Reykjavik\nLatin school, after a brief stay in Denmark where his teachers\nfailed to find the key to the silent, reserved lad. There he lived\nthe seven pregnant years of boyhood and youth, from fourteen to\ntwenty-one, and ever after there was that about him that brought to\nmind the wild fastnesses of that storm swept land. Its mountains\nwere not more rugged than his belief in the right as he saw it.\n\nThe Reykjavik school had a good name, but school and pupils were\nafter their own kind. Conventional was hardly the word for it. Some\nof the \u201cboys\u201d were twenty and over. Finsen loved to tell of how\nthey pursued the studies each liked best, paying scant attention to\nthe rest. In their chosen fields they often knew much more than the\ncurriculum called for, and were quite able to instruct the teacher;\nthe things they cared less about they helped one another out with,\nso as to pass examinations. For mere proficiency in lessons they\ncherished a sovereign contempt. To do anything by halves is not the\nIceland way, and it was not Niels Finsen\u2019s. All through his life he\nwas impatient with second-hand knowledge and borrowed thinking. So\nhe worked and played through the long winters of the North. In the\nsummer vacations he roamed the barren hills, helped herd the sheep,\nand drank in the rough freedom of the land and its people. At\ntwenty-one the school gave him up to the university at Copenhagen.\n\nTraining for life there was not the heyday of youthful frolicking\nwe sometimes associate with college life in our day and land. Not\nuntil he was thirty could he hang up his sheepskin as a physician.\nYet the students had their fun and their sports, and Finsen was\nseldom missing where these went on. He was not an athlete because\nalready at twenty-three the crippling disease with which he battled\ntwenty years had got its grip on him, but all the more he was an\noutdoor man. He sailed his boat, and practised with the rifle until\nhe became one of the best shots in Denmark. And it is recorded that\nhe got himself into at least one scrape at the university by his\nlove of freedom.\n\nThe country was torn up at that time by a struggle between people\nand government over constitutional rights, and it had reached a\npoint where a country parish had refused to pay taxes illegally\nassessed, as they claimed. It was their Boston tea-party. A\ndelegation of the \u201ctax refusers\u201d had come to Copenhagen, where\nthe political pot was boiling hot over the incident. The students\nwere enthusiastic, but the authorities of the university sternly\nunsympathetic. The \u201cReds\u201d were for giving a reception to the\nvisitors in Regentsen, the great dormitory where, as an Iceland\nstudent, Finsen had free lodging; but it was certain that the Dean\nwould frown upon such a proposition. So they applied innocently for\npermission to entertain some \u201cfriends from the country,\u201d and the\nparty was held in Finsen\u2019s room. Great was the scandal when the\nopposition newspapers exploited the feasting of the tax refusers\nin the sacred precincts of the university. To the end of his days\nFinsen chuckled over the way they stole a march on the Dean.\n\nFor two or three years after getting his degree he taught in the\nmedical school as demonstrator, eking out his scant income by\ntutoring students in anatomy. His sure hand and clear decision\nin any situation marked him as a practitioner of power, and he\nhad thoughts once of devoting himself to the most delicate of\nall surgery,\u2014that of the eye. He was even then groping for his\nlife-work, without knowing it, for it was always light, light\u2014the\nsource or avenue or effect of it\u2014that held him. And presently his\nwork found him.\n\nIt has been said that Finsen was a sick man. A mysterious\nmalady[15] with dropsical symptoms clutched him from the earliest\ndays with ever tightening grip, and all his manhood\u2019s life he was a\ngreat but silent sufferer. Perhaps it was that; perhaps it was the\nbleak North in which his young years had been set that turned him\nto the light as the source of life and healing. He said it himself:\n\u201cIt was because I needed it so much, I longed for it so.\u201d Probably\nit was both. Add to them his unique power of turning the things\nof every day life to account in his scientific research, and one\nbegins to understand at once his success and his speedy popularity.\nHe dealt with the humble things of life, and got to the heart of\nthings on that road. And the people comprehended; the wise men fell\nin behind him\u2014sometimes a long way behind.\n\n[Illustration: DR. NIELS FINSEN]\n\nIn the yard of Regentsen there grows a famous old linden tree.\nStanding at his window one day and watching its young leaf sprout,\nFinsen saw a cat sunning itself on the pavement. The shadow of the\nhouse was just behind it and presently crept up on pussy who got\nup, stretched herself, and moved into the sunlight. In a little\nwhile the shadow overtook her there, and pussy moved once more.\nFinsen watched the shadow rout her out again and again. It was\nclear that the cat liked the sunlight.\n\nA few days later he stood upon a bridge and saw a little squad of\ninsects sporting on the water. They drifted down happily with the\nstream till they came within the shadow of the bridge, when they at\nonce began to work their way up a piece to get a fresh start for a\nsunlight sail. Finsen knew just how they felt. His own room looked\nnorth and was sunless; his work never prospered as it did when he\nsat with a friend whose room was on the south side, where the sun\ncame in. It was warm and pleasant; but was that all? Was it only\nthe warmth that made the birds break into song when the sun came\nout on a cloudy day, made the insects hum joyously and man himself\nwalk with a more springy step? The housekeeper who \u201csunned\u201d the\nbed-clothes and looked with suspicion on a dark room had something\nelse in mind; the sun \u201cdisinfected\u201d the bedding. Finsen wanted to\nknow what it was in the sunlight that had this power, and how we\ncould borrow it and turn it to use.\n\nThe men of science had long before analyzed the sunlight. They had\nbroken it up into the rays of different color that together make\nthe white light we see. Any boy can do it with a prism, and in the\nband or spectrum of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet that then\nappears, he has before him the cipher that holds the key to the\nsecrets of the universe if we but knew how to read it aright; for\nthe sunlight is the physical source of all life and of all power.\nThe different colors represent rays with different wave-lengths;\nthat is, they vibrate with different speed and do different work.\nThe red vibrate only half as fast as the violet, at the other end\nof the spectrum, and, roughly speaking, they are the heat carriers.\nThe blue and violet are cold by comparison. They are the force\ncarriers. They have power to cause chemical changes, hence are\nknown as the chemical or actinic rays. It is these the photographer\nshuts out of his dark room, where he intrenches himself behind a\nruby-colored window. The chemical ray cannot pass that; if it did\nit would spoil his plate.\n\nThis much was known, and it had been suggested more than once\nthat the \u201cdisinfecting\u201d qualities of the sunlight might be due\nto the chemical rays killing germs. Finsen, experimenting with\nearthworms, earwigs, and butterflies, in a box covered with glass\nof the different colors of the spectrum, noted first that the bugs\nthat naturally burrowed in darkness became uneasy in the blue\nlight. As fast as they were able, they got out of it and crawled\ninto the red, where they lay quiet and apparently content. When\nthe glass covers were changed they wandered about until they found\nthe red light again. The earwigs were the smartest. They developed\nan intelligent grasp of the situation, and soon learned to make\nstraight for the red room. The butterflies, on the other hand,\nliked the red light only to sleep in. It was made clear by many\nsuch experiments that the chemical rays, and they only, had power\nto stimulate, to \u201cstir life.\u201d Finsen called it that himself. In the\nlanguage of the children, he was getting \u201cwarm.\u201d\n\nThat this power, like any other, had its perils, and that nature,\nif not man, was awake to them, he proved by some simple experiments\nwith sunburn. He showed that the tan which boys so covet was the\ndefence the skin puts forth against the blue ray. The inflammation\nof sunburn is succeeded by the brown pigmentation that henceforth\nstands guard like the photographer\u2019s ruby window, protecting the\ndeeper layers of the skin. The black skin of the negro was no\nlonger a mystery. It is his protection against the fierce sunlight\nof the tropics and the injurious effect of its chemical ray.\n\nSearching the libraries in Copenhagen for the records of earlier\nexplorers in his field, and finding little enough there, Finsen\ncame across the report of an American army surgeon on a smallpox\nepidemic in the South in the thirties of the last century. There\nwere so many sick in the fort that, every available room being\nfilled, they had to put some of the patients into the bomb-proof,\nto great inconvenience all-round, as it was entirely dark there.\nThe doctor noted incidentally that, as if to make up for it, the\nunderground patients got well sooner and escaped pitting. To him\nit was a curious incident, nothing more. Upon Dr. Finsen, sitting\nthere with the seventy-five-year-old report from over the sea in\nhis hand, it burst with a flood of light: the patients got well\nwithout scarring _because_ they were in the dark. Red light or\ndarkness, it was all the same. The point was that the chemical rays\nthat could cause sunburn on men climbing glaciers, and had power to\nirritate the sick skin, were barred out. Within a month he jolted\nthe medical world by announcing that smallpox patients treated\nunder red light would recover readily and without disfigurement.\n\nThe learned scoffed. There were some of them who had read of the\npractice in the Middle Ages of smothering smallpox patients in\nred blankets, giving them red wine to drink and hanging the room\nwith scarlet. Finsen had not heard of it, and was much interested.\nEvidently they had been groping toward the truth. How they came\nupon the idea is not the only mystery of that strange day, for\nthey knew nothing of actinic rays or sunlight analyzed. But Finsen\ncalmly invited the test, which was speedy in coming.\n\nThey had smallpox in Bergen, Norway, and there the matter was\nput to the proof with entire success; later in Sweden and in\nCopenhagen. The patients who were kept under the red light\nrecovered rapidly, though some of them were unvaccinated children,\nand bad cases. In no instance was the most dangerous stage of the\ndisease, the festering stage, reached; the temperature did not rise\nagain, and they all came out unscarred.\n\nFinsen pointed out that where other methods of treatment such as\npainting the face with iodine or lunar caustic, or covering it\nwith a mask or with fat, had met with any success in the past, the\nsame principle was involved of protecting the skin from the light,\nthough the practitioner did not know it. He was doing the thing\nthey did in the middle ages, and calling them quacks.\n\nIt is strange but true that Dr. Finsen had never seen a smallpox\npatient at that time, but he knew the nature of the disease, and\nthat the sufferer was affected by its eruption first and worst on\nthe face and hands\u2014that is to say, on the parts of the body exposed\nto the light\u2014and he was as sure of his ground as was Leverrier\nwhen, fifty years before, he bade his fellow astronomers look in a\nparticular spot of the heavens for an unknown planet that disturbed\nthe movements of Uranus. And they found the one we call Neptune\nthere.\n\nPresently all the world knew that the first definite step had been\ntaken toward harnessing in the service of man the strange force\nin the sunlight that had been the object of so much speculation\nand conjecture. The next step followed naturally. In the published\naccount of his early experiments Finsen foreshadows it in the\nwords, \u201cThat the beginning has been made with the hurtful effects\nof this force is odd enough, since without doubt its beneficial\neffect is far greater.\u201d His clear head had already asked the\nquestion: if the blue rays of the sun can penetrate deep enough\ninto the skin to cause injury, why should they not be made to do\npolice duty there, and catch and kill offending germs\u2014in short, to\nheal?\n\nFinsen had demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the\nchemical rays have power to kill germs. But it happens that these\nare the rays that possess the least penetration. How to make\nthem go deeper was the problem. By an experiment that is, in its\nsimplicity, wholly characteristic of the man, he demonstrated that\nthe red blood in the deeper layers of the skin was the obstacle. He\nplaced a piece of photographic paper behind the lobe of his wife\u2019s\nears and concentrated powerful blue rays on the other side. Five\nminutes of exposure made no impression on the paper; it remained\nwhite. But when he squeezed all the blood out of the lobe, by\npressing it between two pieces of glass, the paper was blackened in\ntwenty seconds.\n\nThat night Finsen knew that he had within his grasp that which\nwould make him a rich man if he so chose. He had only to construct\napparatus to condense the chemical rays and double their power\nmany times, and to apply his discovery in medical practice. Wealth\nand fame would come quickly. He told the writer in his own simple\nway how he talked it over with his wife. They were poor. Finsen\u2019s\nsalary as a teacher at the university was something like $1200 a\nyear. He was a sick man, and wealth would buy leisure and luxury.\nChildren were growing up about them who needed care. They talked it\nout together, and resolutely turned their backs upon it all. Hand\nin hand they faced the world with their sacrifice. What remained of\nlife to him was to be devoted to suffering mankind. That duty done,\nwhat came they would meet together. Wealth never came, but fame in\nfull measure, and the love and gratitude of their fellow-men.\n\nThere is a loathsome disease called lupus, of which, happily, in\nAmerica with our bright skies we know little. Lupus is the Latin\nword for wolf, and the ravenous ailment is fitly named, for it\nattacks by preference the face, and gnaws at the features, at nose,\nchin, or eye, with horrible, torturing persistence, killing slowly,\nwhile the patient shuts himself out from the world praying daily\nfor death to end his misery.\n\nIn the north of Europe it is sadly common, and there had never been\nany cure for it. Ointments, burning, surgery\u2014they were all equally\nuseless. Once the wolf had buried its fangs in its victim, he was\ndoomed to inevitable death. The disease is, in fact, tuberculosis\nof the skin, and is the most dreadful of all the forms in which the\nwhite plague scourges mankind\u2014was, until one day Finsen announced\nto the world his second discovery, that lupus was cured by the\nsimple application of light.\n\nIt was not a conjecture, a theory, like the red light treatment for\nsmallpox; it was a fact. For two years he had been sending people\naway whole and happy who came to him in despair. The wolf was\nslain, and by this silent sufferer whose modest establishment was\nall contained within a couple of small shanties in a corner of the\ncity hospital grounds, at Copenhagen.\n\nThere was a pause of amazed incredulity. The scientific men did\nnot believe it. Three years later, when the physician in charge\nof Finsen\u2019s clinic told at the medical congress in Paris of the\nresults obtained at the Light Institute, his story was still\nreceived with a polite smile. The smile became astonishment when,\nat a sign from him, the door opened and twelve healed lupus\npatients came in, each carrying a photograph of himself as he was\nbefore he underwent the treatment. Still the doctors could not\ngrasp it. The thing was too simple as matched against all their\nfutile skill.\n\nBut the people did not doubt. There was a rush from all over Europe\nto Copenhagen. Its streets became filled with men and women whose\nfaces were shrouded in heavy bandages, and it was easy to tell\nthe new-comers from those who had seen \u201cthe professor.\u201d They came\nin gloom and misery; they went away carrying in their faces the\nsunshine that gave them back their life. Finsen never tired, when\nshowing friends over his Institute, of pointing out the joyous\nhappiness of his patients. It was his reward. For not \u201cscience\nfor science\u2019s sake,\u201d or pride in his achievement, was his aim and\nthought, but just the wish to do good where he could. Then, in\nthree more years, they awarded him the great Nobel prize for signal\nservice to humanity, and criticism was silenced. All the world\napplauded.\n\n\u201cThey gave it to me this year,\u201d said Finsen, with his sad little\nsmile, \u201cbecause they knew that next year it would have been too\nlate.\u201d And he prophesied truly. He died nine months later.\n\nAll that is here set down seems simple enough. But it was\nachieved with infinite toil and patience, by the most painstaking\nexperiments, many times repeated to make sure. In his method of\nworking Finsen was eminently conservative and thorough. Nothing\n\u201chappened\u201d with him. There was ever behind his doings a definite\npurpose for which he sought a way, and the higher the obstacles\npiled up the more resolutely he set his teeth and kept right on.\n\u201cThe thing is not in itself so difficult,\u201d he said, when making\nready for his war upon the wolf, \u201cbut the road is long and the\nexperiments many before we find the right way.\u201d\n\nHe took no new step before he had planted his foot firmly in the\none that went before; but once he knew where he stood, he did not\nhesitate to question any scientific dogma that opposed him, always\nin his own quiet way, backed by irrefutable facts. In a remarkable\ndegree he had the faculty of getting down through the husk to the\ncore of things, but he rejected nothing untried. The little thing\nin hand, he ever insisted, if faithfully done might hold the key\nto the whole problem; only let it be done _now_ to get the matter\nsettled.\n\nWhatever his mind touched it made perfectly clear, if it was not\nso already. As a teacher of anatomy he invented a dissecting knife\nthat was an improvement on those in use, and clamps for securing\nthe edges of a wound in an operation. As a rifle shot he made an\nimproved breech; as a physician, observing the progress of his\nown disease, an effective blood powder for anaemia. At the Light\nInstitute, which friends built for him, and the government endowed,\nhe devised the powerful electric lamps to which he turned in\nthe treatment of lupus, for the sun does not shine every day in\nCopenhagen; and when it did not, the lenses that gathered the blue\nrays and concentrated them upon the swollen faces were idle. And\ngradually he increased their power, checking the heat rays that\nwould slip through and threatened to scorch the patient\u2019s skin, by\ncunning devices of cooling streams trickling through the tubes and\nthe hollow lenses.\n\nNothing was patented; it was all given freely to the world. The\ndecision which he and his wife made together was made once for\nall. When the great Nobel prize was given to him he turned it over\nto the Light Institute, and was with difficulty persuaded to keep\nhalf of it for himself only when friends raised an equal amount and\npresented it to the Institute.\n\nFinsen knew that his discoveries were but the first groping steps\nupon a new road that stretched farther ahead than any man now\nliving can see. He was content to have broken the way. His faith\nwas unshaken in the ultimate treatment of the whole organism under\nelectric light that, by concentrating the chemical rays, would\nimpart to the body their life-giving power. He himself was beyond\ntheir help. Daily he felt life slipping from him, but no word of\ncomplaint passed his lips. He prescribed for himself a treatment\nthat, if anything, was worse than the disease. Only a man of iron\nwill could have carried it through.\n\nA set of scales stood on the table before him, and for years he\nweighed every mouthful of food he ate. He suffered tortures from\nthirst because he would allow no fluid to pass his lips, on account\nof his tendency to dropsy. Through it all he cheerfully kept up his\nlabors, rejoicing that he was allowed to do so much. His courage\nwas indomitable; his optimism under it all unwavering. His favorite\ncontention was that there is nothing in the world that is not good\nfor something, except war. That he hated, and his satire on the\nmilitarism of Europe as its supreme folly was sharp and biting.\n\nOf such quality was this extraordinary man of whom half the world\nwas talking while the fewest, even in his own home city, ever saw\nhim. Fewer still knew him well. It suited his temper and native\nmodesty, as it did the state of his bodily health, to keep himself\nsecluded. His motto was: \u201c_bene vixit qui bene latuit_\u2014he has\nlived well who has kept himself well hidden\u201d\u2014and his contention\nwas always that in proportion as one could keep himself in the\nbackground his cause prospered, if it was a good cause. When kings\nand queens came visiting, he could not always keep in hiding,\nthough he often tried. On one of his days of extreme prostration\nthe dowager empress of Russia knocked vainly at his door. She\npleaded so hard to be allowed to see Dr. Finsen that they relented\nat last, and she sat by his bed and wept in sympathy with his\nsufferings, while he with his brave smile on lips that would twitch\nwith pain did his best to comfort her. She and Queen Alexandra,\nboth daughters of King Christian, carried the gospel of hope and\nhealing from his study to their own lands, and Light Institutes\nsprang up all over Europe.\n\nIn his own life he treated nearly nineteen hundred sufferers,\ntwo-thirds of them lupus patients, and scarce a handful went from\nhis door unhelped. When his work was done he fell asleep with\na smile upon his lips, and the \u201cuniversal judgment was one of\nuniversal thanksgiving that he had lived.\u201d He was forty-three years\nold.\n\nWhen the news of his death reached the Rigsdag, the Danish\nparliament, it voted his widow a pension such as had been given to\nfew Danes in any day. The king, his sons and daughters, and, as it\nseemed, the whole people followed his body to the grave. The rock\nfrom his native island marks the place where he lies. His work is\nhis imperishable monument. His epitaph he wrote himself in the\nspeech another read when the Nobel prize was awarded him, for he\nwas then too ill to speak.\n\n\u201cMay the Light Institute grasp the obligation that comes with its\nsuccess, the obligation to maintain what I account the highest aim\nin science\u2014truth, faithful work, and sound criticism.\u201d\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[15] The autopsy which he himself ordered on his death-bed as his\nlast contribution to medical knowledge, showed it to be a slow\nossification of the membrane of the heart, involving the liver and\nall the vital organs. He was \u201ctapped\u201d for dropsy more than twenty\ntimes.\n\n\nPrinted in the United States of America.","title":"Hero Tales of the Far North","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":60528}