humbler classes!*)-the peasants discovered the body of a female pegged down in the bog, a spurious Queen Gunhild.

As we drove along I fell into a reverie, and tried to picture to myself the map of Jutland and the Danish isles, such as it might have been before the birth of Christ, when these long valleys, now half under cultivation, half mose, were still extensive lakes, sloppings of the great deluge, not yet dried up in time to pass away from the evaporation of the sun's rays and the labour of mankind.

That the waters are retiring in these parts there can be no doubt; the very names as well as the stranded appearance of the sites on which the villages are built attest the fact-Trandersholm (island), Engholm, and twenty others.

The worthy mayor of Aalborg told me himself that, where he used to fish some eighteen years since in the little lake of Gravlev, the land has been long since under cultivation, and from no draining process. The islands, too, of the Liimfiorde are gradually becoming connected with the land-Oxholm, and many others: while at the farm of Revs the proprietor continued, until fifty years ago, to hold the privilege of ferrying over travellers in his boat to Gudenholm, where carriages have passed over dry land for many centuries. It is more easy to realise this transition in a summer twilight, when there is a sombre mysterious gloom as far as the straining eye can gaze over this sea of hillocks.

After a weary three hours' drive we arrive at Lin

One thousand large turves here sell for 2s. 6d. English-they find no bog-oak though, as in Ireland.

denborg, an ancient château (Grevskab) of Count Schimmelmann, picturesque, quaintly begabled, and hardly visible from the trees which grow round, separating it from the grass-green moat, stagnant and noisy as an old French grenouillière.

"What a pity the evening is so far advanced!" we exclaimed; but it was no pity, for in the soft tones of twilight the old building looked more mysterious, in the midst, too, of such a wild country, embowered in trees-alone-isolated. Somehow or other at the moment its history had escaped my memory, otherwise for gilded gold I would never have traversed the road we trod drowsily along after nightfall, for there are dark tales of Lindenborg well known to the peasants of the surrounding country.

Ræsholm, as it was called until created into a county, has passed through many hands-strange it is how these manors changed proprietors in Jutland; none, I believe, save Rosenholm, descended from father to son for the lapse of three hundred and fifty years—later it became the possession by purchase of Claus Daa, a noble Jutlander, married to King Christian IV.'s granddaughter, Sophia, Baroness of Lindenov. Claus Daa came to an untimely death in the castle, no one knew how, “beside the red door," was buried and forgotten. Years rolled on, and the fair but very frail Sophia became attacked by that scourge of the female sex, a hideous cancer. Fearful were the torments she endured, not only of body, but of mind. As a last resource, she caused her suffering frame to be transported in a litter by four horses over the jolting roads and ruts to Aalborg, even in these days, as we ourselves can attest, a weary journey. To stifle her screams, she was

accompanied by a band of musicians; at each paroxysm they burst forth into melody, adding to the torments of the sufferer. She reaches Aalborg, and submits to the surgeon's knife-an operation of no avail. Grim Death is fast approaching: she sends for the Bishop, and on her death-bed makes a full and true confession of the murder of her husband. She wished for more liberty for the indulgence of her guilty passions. She died; but oft on a wintry night the passing traveller still hears the tramp of the litter-bearers and horses, with the agonising shrieks of the suffering lady, surpassing in shrillness the trumpets and clarions, hired, like the gongs of an Indian suttee, to conceal them from the horror-stricken villagers. It is one o'clock-the very recollection of this story gives me the "creeps"-it is pleasant to see in the morning twilight the spire of St. Budolph, and to be lodged safe and sound away from all ghosts and goblins at the hotel Phoenix in the city of Aalborg.

VOL. II.

G

CHAPTER XXXV.

Aalborg or Eel Castle-Its armes parlantes - Death of King JohnJens Bang and the miser's daughter - The Agger Canal - Skipper Clemens, leader of the Vendel boers - Hog family - Their high and ancient descent Coat of Jørgen Bille - Great bog of JutlandBørglum and Bishop Crump- The lady of Asdal and the flitch of

bacon.

AALBORG.

June 28th.-WE are at Aalborg, Eel Castle-simple people those early Scandinavians, with their Flounder Castles and their eels; no Tonquebec here-no Château Gaillard in this country-all plain speaking; and here we are are on the Liimfiorde, within two days' journey from Skagen, which people prophesied we should never reach. My first impression of Aalborg as we entered the town was favourable: old houses, antique and respectable-looking; narrow streets; and here and there a running Aa (I can't say river, and won't insult the natives by calling it stream), three of which pass through the city-Øster Aa, Vester Aa, and Blegdams Aa by name-each separate stream contributing as its share an eel to the heraldic bearings of the town-three red eels on a field or. The banks of the Liimfiorde are here flat; but an expanse of water is always pleasing to the eye; it runs from here four Danish miles down to Hals.*

* Where, in A.D. 965, Harald Graafeld, King of Norway, son of Queen Gunhild, was assassinated by Guld Harald, later murdered himself by Hakon Jarl.

Aalborg is not a town of sights, guide-book-speaking— no bounden duties; a most blessed circumstance: still there is quite enough to interest and while away a day, pottering about without any fixed plan or stereotyped project. The pavement is not famous, but there are symptoms of progress; three long streets have been lately repaved; gas was introduced here as soon, if not before, Copenhagen; and a liberal supply of water is forced by hydraulic pumps to the upper stories of every house in the place, from Bleg Kilde. There is no doubt that this valley originally formed part of the fiorde; the city must have then been almost an island, the truth of which theory is carried out by the oyster-beds found embedded in the rocks near Bleg Kilde-beds of unopened oysters, growing, as oysters do in nature, double, the round shell undermost-not separate, like the kitchen heaps of the Northern Museum, of which plenty have been discovered on the heights above the Liimfiorde.

Leaving the hotel, we stroll down the street leading to St. Budolph's church: the doors are open; odd women occupied in cleaning it out, each armed with a goose's wing-ancient Scandinavian duster, used, I have no doubt, in the time of King Gorm. St. Budolph's is like all churches in these parts-carving, paint, and gold.

We must visit that adjoining house in the corner of the ancient Kloster court, gabled and ancient. Here, in the year 1513, Feb. 20th, expired King Hans (John), father of Christian II., Knight of the most honourable

* One of the few which in this part of the town escaped the raging conflagration of 1660 or thereabouts, since which date no fire has attacked Aalborg; hence her antiquated appearance.