level with the waters: this is the island of Hiarnø,* death and burial-place of the poet king. A heap of stones, carved over with ships of rude workmanship, marks the place of his interment. His grave rests undisturbed by the antiquaries, though not by the cattle; for many years since a mad bull tore up the turf with his horns and brought to light an ancient sword. The labourer who inhabited the farm on which the grave was situated declared that from that hour nothing but ill-luck happened to him. And now in the background rises the sister isle of Alrø, the resting-place of his Queen Alruna. There is something poetic in the idea. of these two early Scandinavians, each sleeping in their own small grassy isle, the waters of the fiorde flowing between them. We coast by a wooded aitch, with an extensive farmhouse, the property of Baron Juel, Vaarsø by name; a smaller, still green and desert, called Vaarso's Calf; then come shipping, the towers of Horsens, windmills hard at work on hilltop, none so busy as the Jutland windmill. We land upon the pier, and, after ten minutes' walk, take up our lodgings at Jørgensens. * Hiarne had reigned for some years when Friedlev the heir, whom the Danes imagined to have been dead, returned to his native country, and Hiarne, after a battle in which he was worsted, fled to the island of Hiarno, disguised as a peasant: he later repairs to the court, and gets employed as a salt-boiler in the Royal kitchen. He keeps his person so dirty, the king orders him to be washed, after which he is recognised. The king inquires of him "Did you come here to take my life?" "No," replies Hiarne; "but to decide the matter by single combat." Friedlev agrees, and Hiarne is slain and receives honourable burial in his own island. CHAPTER XXIX. Boller, the place of banishment of Christina Munk - Her regal state— The copper nail in a bed of gold - The eatable snail naturalized by a Frenchman land clergyman- Agnete and the merman Ports Legend of the Elder Queen. Coffin of Count Griffenfeld-Præstegaard of a Jut- BOLLER. June 15th.-OUT of respect to the memory of Christina Munk-not that she deserved it-we determined to visit Roller, the scene of her banishment after her divorce and expulsion from Frederiksborg. She remained here in confinement until the year 1646, when, at the intercession of her sons-in-law, she was released: they pleaded that her imprisonment reflected a disgrace upon her children. From that time matters went better; there was even a prospect of reconciliation between her and the king; and she was at her mother's in Funen, on her way to Copenhagen, when the news of his death reached her. She is said to have burst into a flood of tears, and, after a regular good cry, to have exclaimed, "Well, who ever would have thought I should have shed tears for Christian's sake?" Christina remained at Boller till her death, living in great state-a state which was particularly displeasing to her step-son the king, who sent commissioners down to Boller to see what she was after, and beg she would show the proofs of her right to the title of Countess Slesvig-Holstein. On their arrival they were received at the gate with flourishes of trumpets-a somewhat regal proceeding, which Christina, when she found out who they were, very much alarmed, declared to be a mistake. Proofs she could produce none beyond a letter in King Christian's own hand, directed to the well-born Mrs. Christina Munk, Countess of Slesvig-Holstein. When she was accused of writing "we," she gave no answer, but went off into a tirade of her persecutions, &c. &c. From this time we hear no more about her. An old moated mansion is Boller, surrounded with garden, farm, and wood, running down to the water's edge; it is now the property of Count Friis. In the gardens stands a pollard lime-tree, under whose branches, supported on trellis-work, many hundred men might dine. Splendid oaks too, of whose possession an English park might be proud. Christina must have known these trees, and perhaps under their shade may have wept-not her fault, but its discovery-and thought what a fool she had been to sacrifice honour, position, and the fortunes of her children,* for the attention of a chamberlain of her husband's court. In earlier days Boller was the scene of a romance more tragic still. Queen Margaret, like all women, was a matchmaker; she hated a too small but powerful nobility, and it was her policy to swamp them by marrying the younger sons to rich heiresses of the commercial classes, and vice versa. On her giving the high-born Kirsten Thott in marriage to her favourite Jeppe Muus, son of a rich burgher, the indignant bride presented her husband with a gold ring, in which was encrusted a copper nail, with this inscription: * The youngest of whom Christian refused to recognise. Ellen Marsviin sent her off to Cologne, where she was brought up as a convent boarder, and later took the veil. "Arte dig kaaber nagle, die ligger i guld" (flourish, copper nail, thou liest in gold). Queen Margaret counted not on the vengeance of the bride's betrothed, Holger Munk, the lord of Boller, who, to the rage of the queen, picked a quarrel with the bridegroom, killed him, and married his widow the next day. There is something very attractive in these Danish country-seats, reminding you much of England as it is still in many parts, and was formerly, before the villanous taste of sundry landscape- gardeners destroyed our fine old gardens, and laid low our trim avenues. Our grounds are well kept, radiant with American shrubs and flowers; but in nine places out of ten where can you walk and meditate?-straight you cannot go; either you tumble into an iron fence and march into the centre of a flower-bed, or get stranded among the rock-work, a foot upon zig, a foot upon zag: no reveries, no brown-study in an English garden, and very little shade into the bargain. In France you have your clipped charmille—your terrace, wide and imposing —your plate-bandes, laid out perhaps too formally, but very charming altogether, and adapted to the climate of a joyous sunny land. What I enjoy in these Danish residences is the combination of all these advantages together. Your garden gay with old-fashioned flowers, glorious roses; then, further removed, the lime avenue -"se perdant dans les bois"-those lovely woods running always to the water's edge. The only thing I disapprove of is the stagnant moat, telling of fever; it must be unwholesome, and should be let off from time to time. Not far removed from the château of Boller stands the parish church of Uth. If you love old stone monuments of armed knight and high-born lady, visit it, and you will be gratified: Gyldernstierne and Rosenkrantz-old Jutland names; the latter perhaps the most distinguished of Denmark. In the afternoon we drove over to Steensballegaard, the seat of Baron Juel, on the opposite side of the fiorde to Boller, remarkable for the beauty of its site. The entrance through the gaard, or farmyard-the moated grange itself, surrounded on one side by a square of farm-buildings-shocks an English eye; but when gentlemen farm on the scale of Jutlanders-feed and lodge some hundred retainers-it is necessary to keep these matters near at hand. An avenue of limes, some half a mile in length, led us to a hill-top, from whence we mounted to an adjoining høi, commanding the country round and the fiorde below. Hiarno and Alrø, Vaarso and her Calf-glorious woods and pasture-lands—a real Danish landscape. The country is refreshed after a long drought by frequent showers. The Helix pomatia— eatable snail-here abounds: excellent for consumptive patients. You find them in England in the "Pilgrim's walks "—Sir Kenelm Digby too introduced them in the neighbourhood of Croydon; his wife, the Lady Venetia, affected them much for the benefit of her complexion ; so tradition says: and here at Boller, as well as at Lethraborg, the only two places where they exist in Denmark, they were introduced by a Frenchman. VEHR. We returned home by Væhr, a small village, the last resting-place of Griffenfeld, who, after twenty-seven years' imprisonment in the fortress of Munkholm, near Tronyem, died at the house of his only daughter, VOL. II. |