The Sand-Hills of Jutland. Hans Christian Andersen
and misery to a home which, by comparison, might be called a heaven – to kindness and love, he now passed. This also was to be a trial of his character. No chalice of life is altogether wormwood. A good person would not fill such for a child: would, then, the Almighty Father, who is all love, do so?
"Let all that has taken place be now buried and forgotten," said the worthy Mr. Brönne. "We shall draw a thick line over last year. We shall burn the almanac. In two days we shall start for that blessed, peaceful, pleasant Skagen. It is said to be only a little insignificant nook in the country; but a nice warm nook it is, with windows open to the wide world."
That was a journey – that was to breathe the fresh air again – to come from the cold, damp prison-cell out into the warm sunshine!
The heather was blooming on the moorlands; the shepherd boys sat on the tumuli and played their flutes, which were manufactured out of the bones of sheep; the Fata Morgana, the beautiful mirage of the desert, with its hanging seas and undulating woods, showed itself; and that bright, wonderful phenomenon in the air, which is called the "Lokéman driving his sheep."
Towards Limfiorden they passed over the Vandal's land; and towards Skagen they journeyed where the men with the long beards, Langbarderne,1 came from. In that locality it was that, during the famine under King Snio, all old people and young children were ordered to be put to death; but the noble lady, Gambaruk, who was the heiress of that part of the country, insisted that the children should rather be sent out of the country. Jörgen was learned enough to know all about this; and, though he was not acquainted with the Langobarders' country beyond the lofty Alps, he had a good idea what it must be, as he had himself, when a boy, been in the south of Europe, in Spain. Well did he remember the heaped-up piles of fruit, the red pomegranate flowers, the din, the clamour, the tolling of bells in the Spanish city's great hive; but all was more charming at home, and Denmark was Jörgen's home.
At length they reached Vendilskaga, as Skagen is called in the old Norse and Icelandic writings. For miles and miles, interspersed with sand-hills and cultivated land, houses, farms, and drifting sand-banks, stretched, and stretch still, towards Gammel-Skagen, Wester and Osterby, out to the lighthouse near Grenen, a waste, a desert, where the wind drives before it the loose sand, and where sea-gulls and wild swans send forth their discordant cries in concert. To the south-west, a few miles from Grenen, lies High, or Old Skagen, where the worthy Brönne lived, and where Jörgen was also to reside. The house was tarred, the small out-houses had each an inverted boat for a roof. Pieces of wrecks were knocked up together to form pigsties. Fences there were none, for there was nothing to inclose; but upon cords, stretched in long rows one over the other, hung fish cut open, and drying in the wind. The whole beach was covered with heaps of putrefying herrings: nets were scarcely ever thrown into the water, for the herrings were taken in loads on the land. There was so vast a supply of this sort of fish, that people either threw them back into the sea, or left them to rot on the sands.
The trader's wife and daughter – indeed, the whole household – came out rejoicing to meet the father of the family when he returned home. There was such a shaking of hands – such exclamations and questions! And what a charming countenance and beautiful eyes the daughter had!
The interior of the house was large and extremely comfortable. Various dishes of fish were placed upon the table; among others some delicious plaice, which might have been a treat for a king; wine from Skagen's vineyard – the vast ocean – from which the juice of the grape was brought on shore both in casks and bottles.
When the mother and daughter afterwards heard who Jörgen was, and how harshly he had been treated, though innocent of all crime, they looked very kindly at him; and most sympathising was the expression of the daughter's eyes, the lovely Miss Clara. Jörgen found a happy home at Gammel-Skagen. It did his heart good, and the poor young man had suffered much, even the bitterness of unrequited love, which either hardens or softens the heart. Jörgen's was soft enough now; there was a vacant place within it, and he was still so young.
It was, perhaps, fortunate that in about three weeks Miss Clara was going in one of her father's ships up to Christiansand, in Norway, to visit an aunt, and remain there the whole winter. The Sunday before her departure they all went to church together, intending to partake of the sacrament. It was a large, handsome church, and had several hundred years before been built by the Scotch and Dutch a little way from where the town was now situated. It had become somewhat dilapidated, was difficult of access, the way to it being through deep, heavy sand; but the disagreeables of the road were willingly encountered in order to enter the house of God – to pray, sing psalms, and hear a sermon there. The sand was, as it were, banked up against, and even higher than, the circular wall of the churchyard; but the graves therein were kept carefully free of the drifting sand.
This was the largest church to the north of Limfiorden. The Virgin Mary, with a crown of gold on her head, and the infant Jesus in her arms, stood as if in life in the altar-piece; the holy apostles were carved on the chancel; and on the walls above were to be seen the portraits of the old burgomasters and magistrates of Skagen, with their insignia of office: the pulpit was richly carved. The sun was shining brightly into the church, and glancing on the crown of brass and the little ship that hung from the roof.
Jörgen felt overcome by a kind of childish feeling of awe, mingled with reverence, such as he had experienced when as a boy he had stood within the magnificent Spanish cathedral; but he knew that here his feelings were shared by many. After the sermon the sacrament was administered. Like the others, he tasted the consecrated bread and wine, and he found that he was kneeling by the side of Miss Clara; but he was so much absorbed in his devotions, and in the sacred rite, that it was only when about to rise that he observed who was his immediate neighbour, and perceived that tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Two days after this she sailed for Norway, and Jörgen made himself useful on the farm, and at the fishery, in which there was much more done then than is now-a-days. The shoals of mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and showed the course they were taking; the crabs gave piteous cries when pursued, for fishes are not so mute as they are said to be. Every Sunday when he went to church, and gazed on the picture of the Virgin in the altar-piece, Jörgen's eyes always wandered to the spot where Clara had knelt by his side; and he thought of her, and how kind she had been to him.
Autumn came, with its hail and sleet; the water washed up to the very town of Skagen; the sand could not absorb all the water, so that people had to wade through it. The tempests drove vessel after vessel on the fatal reefs; there were snow storms and sand storms; the sand drifted against the houses, and closed up the entrances in some places, so that people had to creep out by the chimneys; but that was nothing remarkable up there. While all was thus bleak and wretched without, within there were warmth and comfort. The mingled peat and wood fires – the wood obtained from wrecked ships – crackled and blazed cheerfully, and Mr. Brönne read aloud old chronicles and legends; among others, the story of Prince Hamlet of Denmark, who, coming from England, landed near Bovbjerg, and fought a battle there. His grave was at Ramme, only a few miles from the place where the eel-man lived. Hundreds of tumuli, the graves of the giants and heroes of old, were still visible all over the wide heath – a great churchyard. Mr. Brönne had himself been there, and had seen Hamlet's grave. They talked of the olden times – of their neighbours, the English and Scotch; and Jörgen sang the ballad about "The King of England's Son" – about the splendid ship – how it was fitted up: —
"How on the gilded panels stood
Engraved our Lord's commandments good;
And clasping a sweet maiden, how
The prince stood sculptured on the prow!"
Jörgen sang these lines in particular with much emphasis, whilst his dark eyes sparkled; but his eyes had always been bright from his earliest infancy.
There were songs, and reading, and conversation, and everything to make the winter season pass as pleasantly as possible; there was prosperity in the house, plenty of comfort for the family, and plenty even for the lowest animals on the property; the shelves shone with rows of bright, well-scoured pewter plates and dishes; and from the roof hung sausages and hams, and other winter stores in abundance. Such may be seen
Langobarder, a northern tribe, which, in very ancient times, dwelt in the north of Jutland. From thence they migrated to the north of Germany, where, according to Tacitus, they lived bout the period of the birth of Christ, and were a poor but brave people. Their original name was Vinuler, or Viniler. "When these Viniler," say the traditions, or rather fables of Scandinavia, "were at war with the Vandals, and the latter went to Odin to beseech him to grant them the victory, and received for answer that Odin would award the victory to those whom he beheld first at sunrise, the warlike female, Gambaruk, or Gunborg, who was mother to the leaders of the Viniler – Ebbe and Aage – applied to Frigga, Odin's wife, to entreat victory for her people. The goddess advised that the females of the tribe should let down their long hair so as to imitate beards, and, early in the morning, should stand with their husbands in the east, where Odin would look out. When, at sunrise, Odin saw them, he exclaimed, 'Who are these long-bearded people?' whereupon Frigga replied, that since he had bestowed, a name upon them, he must also give them the victory. This was the origin of the