CHAPTER VII

Riberhus.

To the West of the Old Town, with only the dry moat and a fringe of gardens between, stood the green Castle Hill. Green it was and had been in the memory of the oldest. The road-makers of three generations before had taken what the house-builder had left of the ruins that alone remained of Denmark’s once great historic stronghold. There its fighting kings guarded the land against the enemy to the south; thence its armies had marched to victory or defeat in many a fight with the turbulent German barons. Thither came the merchant ships of Europe bringing stone from the Rhine for the Domkirke, sweet wines andsilken raiment for the ladies of the court, and cloth from Flanders; for to be well dressed in those days a man’s coat must have been cut in Ribe. The river was long since sanded in, in my day, and ships came that way no more. A few lonesome sheep were picketed on the green hill, and when at night the white mist crept in from the sea, blurring and blotting the landscape out, their melancholy bleating alone betrayed the site where once the clash of arms waked ready echoes.

Here dwelt King Valdemar and his gentle queen who live in the Danish folk-song. Of her after seven centuries the ploughman sang yet:

She came without burden, she came with peace,She came the good peasant to cheer.

She came without burden, she came with peace,

She came the good peasant to cheer.

The ballad tells of the brief year of bliss the royal lovers lived here, of his wild ride across the heath to her death-bed, and of the daring May party that won back the castle from a traitorous garrison for “King Erik the young.” Last summer they dug in the Castle Hill and found little enough there. But here on my table stands a brick from the stout wall, that long since crossed the ocean withme. It may be that there is magic in the stone to tell of the past, for it was fashioned by monks who knew more than the pater-nosters they told on their beads; or is it that I am of Queen Dagmar’s kin, her god-son, christened as I was in the font she gave to the Domkirke: last night as I sat alone pondering the old songs, the flickering shadows from my study fire touched it, and I dreamed again the story of King Valdemar and Riberhus.15

I dreamed that I saw a great throng on land and shore, men and women in holiday garments, straining their eyes seaward, where a ship with golden dragon’s head was making its way slowly between low islands. As it came into full view, the people broke into jubilant cheers: “Welcome Dagmar, Denmark’s Queen!” It was the King’s ship bringing his bride from her far Bohemian home. Answering cries came back from the crew, and with music and the waving of many banners the splendid vessel sailed up the channel. At the rail stood a golden-haired princess with the King’s messenger and friend.Her eyes were wet, but there was a happy smile upon her lips. Her glance sought the lonely figure of a horseman on the beach whose prancing steed champed its bit impatiently. Where he rode the crowd fell back and made room.

“What knight rides yonder on the white charger?” she asked; “never saw I kinglier man.”

“Hail thee, fair Queen! that first of Denmark’s sons thou sawest is thy royal bridegroom,” was the answer. “It is King Valdemar, whom his people call ‘Victor,’ with cause.”

Then I heard a louder, more joyous cry than before, and I saw the people thronging about, striving to kiss the hem of her robe as she stood upon the quay that was laid with crimson cloth for her feet. I saw the King bend his knee and kiss her hand and her brow; and the people went wild at the sight. They took her horses out of their harness, and themselves drew the chaise toward the city with the many spires, singing and shouting their joy; and I saw that she was glad and that the young King who rode by herside was proud and happy. I saw them walk up the broad aisle of the Domkirke together, followed by many brave knights and fair ladies, and before the altar they knelt and were blest by the venerable priest who had held the King in his arms at his christening. The bells of the thirteen churches and chapels in the town were rung, and masses were said for the twain at their altars. And I heard many a wassail drunk at the wedding-feast in the great halls of the castle and in the thronged streets of the town, where torches burned from sundown to sunrise and the people made merry through the long summer nights. Strong ale and mead from the royal cellars ran like a river, for such was the custom of the times and of the people.

But before the sun had set twice I heard a new song in the Ribe streets which the very children learned with joy. It told of the Queen’s “morning-gift” from her lord. “Ask,” he said; “whatever thy wish, of land or gold, it shall be thine.” But she prayed for neither greatness nor riches, but that the plough-tax that bore heavily on thehusbandman be forgiven him, and that the peasants who, for rising against it, were laid in irons be set free. And the King granted her prayer. Ever since, the Danish people have given Dagmar’s name to their best-beloved queens. “Daybreak” was the meaning of it in the old tongue, and she was their hope and heart’s desire.

Then darkness fell; and I saw the King resting after the chase in a far-distant place. In the west there arose a cloud of dust, and at the sight of it his heart misgave him, for his happiness had been too great for man. Out of it came one riding fast with evil tidings: “The Queen is sick unto death. She bids the King make haste.” And there came to me the voices of women singing at their spinning-wheels as I heard them when I was a child; and this was the burden of their song:

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When the King he rode out of SkanderborgHim follow’d one hundred men.But when he rode over Ribe BridgeThen rode the King alone.In Ringsted sleepeth Queen Dagmar!

When the King he rode out of Skanderborg

Him follow’d one hundred men.

But when he rode over Ribe Bridge

Then rode the King alone.

In Ringsted sleepeth Queen Dagmar!

Over the wildsome moor he had come, neither resting nor sleeping, his face set ever toward the sea, the one wild prayer in his heart that he might not be too late. But ride man ever so fast, death travels faster. As his horse’s hoofs struck fire from the stones in Grönnegade,16with the castle beyond the pillared gate at its end, the Ribe church bells rang out the tidings of Dagmar’s death.

Now help, O Lord, my Dagmar dear,Me thinketh my heart must break.

Now help, O Lord, my Dagmar dear,

Me thinketh my heart must break.

The King’s Ride over the Moor.

On his knees at her bed the King begs her weeping women to pray that she may speak to him once more, and the Queen opens her eyes andsmiles upon her lover. “Fear not for me,” she says, “I did no worse sin than to lace my silken sleeves on Sunday.” And her last thought as her first is for her people. She prays him to pardon every outlaw, and with her dying breath pleads with him not to take Bengerd to his heart. “The evil Bengerd,” the ballad calls her, and evil did she bring to Denmark. For, when in after years the King did marry the Portuguese princess, whose beauty was so great that even her dust after ages bore witness to it, she brought King and land but sorrow and misery, aye! and of both a full measure.17

But these things were not yet. Still I dreamed by my study lamp. I saw a mighty host of men and ships; fifteen hundred sail did I count in line. But the men wore no fine raiment; they were clad in steel and carried battle-axes and swords. Every knight wore on his left shoulder a crusader’s cross. And I saw the King, grown stern and gray, lead them toward a foreign shore, where there dwelt men who worshipped idols. And there by night the pagan hosts fell upon them in such multitudes that the King’s men were swallowed up as sands by the sea. I saw them struggling in darkness and dread in which no man knew friend from foe, and the Christians were driven back in despair, their standards taken; and a great cry arose that all was lost.

Then I beheld a wondrous thing. I saw a strange banner descending as if from the clouds, over against the hills upon which the priests werecalling upon God for victory. It was crimson red, and in it was a great white cross, even the one upon which our Lord was crucified for the sins of the whole world. And a loud voice cried, “Bear this high, and victory shall be yours.” And the heathen saw and heard and were stricken with fear; for now they knew, indeed, that they were fighting the Lord God of Hosts, and that their strength was as a broken reed. And as the ensign fell among the battling hordes I saw a tall knight who rode before the King seize it and, holding it high, spur his horse into the bravest of the fight, with the cry “For God and the King.”

“For God and the King.”

And I saw the King’s men take heart and the heathen turn and flee from the shore that was strewn with their slain, while the sea ran red with blood. And the King and his men rested their swords and knelt upon the battlefield as the moon rose over it, and sang a Te Deum to their God for having delivered them and crushed the power of the Evil One; for of the Fiend and of his idols there was an end in the land, then and forevermore. And I knew that I had seen in mydream the battle of Lyndanissa that won all Esthland for the Christians’ God by King Valdemar’s sword, and gave to Denmark its Dannebrog, oldest of flags among nations.

“The King and his men knelt upon the battlefield.”

Once more did darkness fall, and I saw the old King betrayed by night in his tent, in the midst of peace, by his guest, the Black Count Henrik of Schwerin, who hated him, and, with Dagmar’s son, brought, bound and gagged, “in great haste and fear,” to the traitor’s strong tower on the Elbe. I saw them lying in chains, thirty moons and more in the dark dungeons, while Denmark’s foes rose on every side and overwhelmed its armies that had lost hope with their leader. I saw the old marshal, the King’s kinsman and friend, brought wounded and chained to his cell after the battle; and the aged King bowed his head while his enemies mocked him. And I saw the prince with Dagmar’s blue eyes and fair locks comfort him in his sorrow and defeat. And then I saw the Danish women, matron and maid, in the proud castle and in the peasant’s hut, bring their gold and their gems, their rings and theirjewels and their silver, for their King’s ransom; and once more the Old Town echoed with cries of gladness and joy as when Dagmar came; but this time he rode alone, and stricken and sore.

Danish Women ransomed their King.

“Comforted the King in sorrow and defeat.”

Once again in my dreams I saw the gates of the tower swing wide and a mighty army march forth to meet the German traitors in battle, to avenge their King. And I saw the great barren where the bones of the fairest knights in all theNorth lay bleaching in many a summer’s sun from that day, while all the Danish land mourned. I saw the day all but won when the base Holsteiners turned their arms against their Danish allies, and I beheld the sun set in defeat and disaster and the King borne, wounded and beaten, from the field, his army destroyed, his wars ended.

But still were his people faithful, in evil days as in good. I saw King Valdemar, now blinded and white and bent, put away the sword and write laws for his land that in the evening of his life earned him the name of the Wise Law-giver; for the landmarks he set, the justice he did between man and man, endure unto this day. I saw the last crushing sorrow fall upon him when Dagmar’s son was killed on the chase by a friend’s arrow. And I saw the mightiest of Danish rulers breathe out his great soul in the fulness of his days. And as I awoke I heard the voice of the old chronicler, when Valdemar was gathered to his fathers: “Truly then fell the crown from the heads of Danish men.” For never since has Denmark seen his like.

The embers in my fireplace glowed and the stone from the old tower showed red. Once more I saw, as in a dream, the castle on the hill. It was night, and there were lights in the windows and sounds of noisy revelry within. On the green by the river men and women were dancing. The girls had daisies and the young leaf of the beech braided in their hair, for it was May-day. The men wore long muffling cloaks that hid their armor and their swords. They were dancing “May into town” in the glad fashion of the day, and into the castle too, where the captain was making merry with his men. He had betrayed the King’s cause into the hands of his enemies and sold his soul, with his faith, for their gold. Little did he dream who was dancing over the drawbridge which the sentinels let down at his bidding:

They danced them over the Ribe Bro, (bridge)There danceth the knight with pointed shoeFor Erik, for young King Erik.

They danced them over the Ribe Bro, (bridge)

There danceth the knight with pointed shoe

For Erik, for young King Erik.

Over the bridge and into the castle they danced, and into the great hall where the faithless TageMuus and his men sat drinking deep to the success of their deviltry, hammering a mirthful welcome on the table with their tankards as the doors swung open for the May party. They trod the dance lightly before them, the men waving torches and the women weaving flowery garlands about them, and the knaves hailed them uproariously; but the shout died in their throats as, at a signal from their leader, the women seized the torches and the men dropped their cloaks and fell upon the revellers with drawn swords. For they were the King’s men, and Ribe was loyal if the captain of the castle was false. So it was won by a May dance

For Erik, for young King Erik,

Valdemar’s son, and his banner flew once more from its walls, while the dungeon claimed the traitors.

Thus I dreamed. And I thought that I slept seven centuries and saw the green Castle Hill once more with its lonesome sheep looking into the sunset; with its billowing reeds in the deep moats that whisper to the west wind of the greatdays that were; with the sleepy little town by the shallow river, its glory gone, its ships gone, the world gone from it, forgotten even as—no, not that. For the great name, the great past, live for all time, and that which I have written is not a dream. It is the story of the castle that stood upon the green hill, and of its king. It is the story of Riberhus.

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