Among the crowd of knights and courtiers who waited the next morning in the antechamber of Helsingborg castle to offer their congratulations to the king and the young queen, were present two influential and well known persons, who had recently landed on the quay. The one was an aged personage of short stature, with an extraordinary degree of energy and determination in his stern yet animated countenance; he was the renowned statesman John Little, who had made so long a sojourn at the Romish court. A tall powerful man stood at his side, in a splendid knight's dress, with a roll of documents in his hand. He was the king's former master in arms, Drost Peter Hessel. They had both arrived from Rome, with important tidings for the king. They were instantly admitted, and those without heard that they were most joyously welcomed. Among the glad voices in the king's chamber were recognised those of the queen and the Drost's noble consort, the Lady IngÉ.

Close to the door of the antechamber stood Morten the cook, in his pilgrim's dress, with old JeppÉ the fisherman and his daughter at his side. He was regarded with curiosity. At first he appeared somewhat uneasy and dejected; but when the king was heard to speak with animation, and in a tone of satisfaction, Morten drew himself up fearlessly, and paced up and down with an air of importance among the distinguished assemblage.

The papers which Drost Hessel had under his arm contained proofs of Archbishop Grand's treachery and connection with the outlaws; they were copies of the same important documents which Junker Christopher, at the time of the archbishop's imprisonment, had removed from the sacristy chest of Lund and brought to Wordingborg. There the dexterous cook had contrived to possess himself of them shortly before he abetted the archbishop's flight from SjÖborg. His object had been to restore them to Grand; but as the archbishop had broken the promise he had made to his deliverer while on the rope-ladder of freeing the king and country from ban and interdict, Morten determined to retain these documents, and while on his pilgrimage to bring them to Chancellor Martinus and the Danish embassy at Rome, where they mainly contributed to justify, or at least excuse the king's conduct towards Grand, and ultimately to depose him from the Archbishopric of Lund.

Morten was soon summoned to the king. When he returned he gaily threw aside his pilgrim's mantle, seized the pretty fishermaiden with the one hand and JeppÉ with the other, and skipped with them down the hall staircase, as a free and wealthy man, to celebrate his wedding at GillÉleiÉ.

Notwithstanding that the suit against Archbishop Grand, and the dangerous differences with the Romish see, were not adjusted until after the lapse of several years, and at the cost of considerable sacrifices, King Eric succeeded at length in obtaining the deposition of Grand, and the instalment of another and more peaceable prelate in the archiepiscopal chair of Lund; in the person of the formerly dreaded Isarnus, who had now, however, learned from the fate of his predecessor how to use his spiritual authority with moderation, and wisely refrained from all interference with state affairs. By the final treaty with the papal court the wanting dispensation of kindred was granted to the king, and his marriage with the noble Princess Ingeborg of Sweden declared to be perfectly valid.

Three weeks after the king's nuptials, the faithful Drost AagÉ was again seen at his side; but he was unalterably grave and pensive. It was not until some years afterwards that he was freed from the ban, together with the king. He never alluded to his journey with Marsk Stig's daughters. Some affirmed that he had only found the elder sister in the prison-tower of Wordingborg, but that the younger had fled. Others insisted they had seen her among the masquers at Helsingborg castle, on the evening of the king's bridal. It was also rumoured that she had been carried off by a merman. A ballad, relating this supposed adventure, has been preserved among the people. The merman was affirmed by some to have been the outlawed KaggÉ, who was shortly afterwards seized and slain by the burghers at Viborg. Meanwhile the beautiful and pathetic ballad, which still preserves the memory of these sisters, bears witness to their having traversed Sweden as fugitives, and having found protection, for the first time, at the court of Norway. According to this ballad the youngest of these exiled sisters was afterwards married to a Norwegian prince; probably an illegitimate son of King Haco.

This popular ballad, as well as many obscure traditions, and what the chronicles record of the latter part of the thirteenth century, bear striking testimony to that troublous time, in which the unhappy consequences of the last regicide in Denmark, hovered, like restless demons, over throne and country, and cast so deep a shade even over the happiest days of the upright King Eric Ericson.

FOOTNOTES

Footnote 1: Pebersvend (literally pepper 'prentice) is the term still jocosely applied to elderly bachelors in Denmark.

Footnote 2: The name of a part of Russia in the middle ages.

Footnote 3: FrodÉ according to the Icelandic historians, the third king of Denmark, surnamed "The Peaceful," although he seems rather to have deserved the title of "The Victorious," as he is said to have brought Sweden, Hungary, England, and Ireland under his sway. The history of FrodÉ as related by the marvel-loving Saxo Grammaticus, contains, as might be expected from the writer and the age, no slight mixture of fable.--Translator.

Footnote 4: Snorro Sturlesen, born 1178, died 1241, the author of the "Heims Kringla," or the history of the Norwegian kings, and the compiler of the Younger Edda, also called "Snorro's Edda." The Elder Edda is the compilation of SÆmund FrodÉ, or "the learned," who was born in Iceland, 1054, and died a priest at OddÉ, in his 78th year. Both the Eddas are collections of religious and mythic poems, and the chief sources whence the knowledge of the northern mythology is derived. The Elder Edda was first known in the middle of the 17th century. It has been translated into Danish by Professor Finn Magnussen.--Translator.

Footnote 5: Snorro Sturlesen, the Norwegian historian, thus pourtrays the character of this monarch,--"King Olaf was a noble prince, possessed of shining virtues and great piety. When driven by Knud (Canute the Great) from Norway, and compelled to take refuge with Jarislaf of Moscow, he bore his exile with patience, and spent his time in prayer and acts of devotion. While in this situation his peace of mind was only disturbed by the apprehension lest the Christian faith, which he had so carefully implanted in Norway, should suffer from the kingdom having passed into the hands of other rulers, and it was chiefly on this account that he made an attempt to regain his crown, and with that purpose once more repaired to Norway, where he was received by many good and true men who desired his return, and were ready to sacrifice their lives in his service. The armies of Canute and Olaf met at Sticklestad in the year 1030. Ere the engagement began, Olaf addressed his troops in a pious and touching discourse. He ordered them to make use of one common watchword, and shout when they attacked the enemy, 'On! Christian men! Chosen men! Kings men!' The battle was fought with equal bravery and obstinacy on both sides, but at last Olaf was slain by one of his own traitorous subjects, who had deserted to Canute's army. Vide Holberg's Hist. of Denmark, vol. i.--Translator.

Footnote 6: An old Danish ballad entitled "King Birger and his brothers," records the crimes of the former, and the melancholy fate of the Swedish dukes. After years of strife between the brothers, Sweden was at last partitioned off into three kingdoms, and possessed three sovereigns and three distinct courts. In 1317, King Birger invited his brothers to visit him at the castle of Nykioping, on the plea of renewing the fraternal intercourse which had been so unhappily interrupted, and the dukes unsuspectingly accepted the king's invitation. On the evening of their arrival, however, after being received with the greatest cordiality by the king, and sumptuously entertained, they were seized by his order, bound hand and foot, and thrown into the dungeon of the castle. This act of treachery soon became known, and the king, fearing the interference of the people in behalf of the dukes, fled from the castle, having first thrown the keys of the dungeon into the deepest part of the river, and given orders that the doors of the dungeon should not be opened until he returned. On his departure Nykioping was instantly besieged, and crowds flocked thither from all quarters, but ere the castle was taken the dukes had expired. Eric died on the third day of his captivity, from the wounds he had received in defending himself against his captors; but Valdemar lived till the twelfth day without food.--Translator.

Footnote 7: Holberg thus relates the fate of this able and upright statesman:--"After a long period of civil war and discord, the feud between King Birger and his brothers was at last accommodated, through the mediation of their mutual counsellors; but on the conclusion of the treaty, the Swedish dukes did their utmost to bring Thorkild Knudsen into discredit with the king, to whom he was represented by them as having been the instigator of the disturbances which had prevailed throughout the country, as well as having stirred up strife among the members of the royal family, and as having abused the confidence of the crown. King Birger, who was glad of any pretext for escaping the blame he himself deserved, turned his back upon his faithful servant, and permitted him to be brought to trial. Thorkild ably defended his rightful cause, but his innocence and eloquence were of no avail. He had been marked out as a victim, was doomed to death as a traitor, and beheaded at Stockholm in the year 1306. It was not without difficulty that his friends obtained permission to inter the body in consecrated ground. Thorkild's treacherous foe, Drost Johan BrunkÉ, continued his career of political intrigue until the year 1318, when he and his partizans were seized in the king's absence, by the opposite faction, and put to death. BrunkÉ's body was exposed on the wheel on a hill without the city, which since that time has borne the name of BrunkÉ's Hill." Vide Holberg's Hist. of Denmark, vol. i.--Trans.

Footnote 8: The subject of the ballad of RibÉhuus is the taking of the castle of RibÉ, which had fallen into the hands of the outlaws during the minority of Eric, by a party of fifty loyal knights, headed by Count Gerhard and Drost Hessel. In the middle ages it was not unusual for the knights to join in the public festivities of the burghers. At one of these, the king's knights took the opportunity of joining a dance by torch lights to be led according to usage through the streets up to the castle. The ballad describes the long row of dancers, as being kept in a straight file by a chain of wreathed green leaves and roses. Each knight held a lady in his left hand and a lighted torch in the right, their drawn swords being carefully concealed under their scarlet mantles. The castle bridge was lowered and the gates thrown open to admit the dancers by permission of the commandant, who in a few minutes found himself a prisoner, and the castle (which was wholly unprepared for the attack) in the hands of King Eric's adherents. The ballad concludes as follows;--

"Thus danced we into the castle hall,
With unsheathed sword 'neath scarlet pall,

The castle it is won!

Ne'er saw I before a castle by chance,
Won by rose-wreaths and the knightly dance,

For young Eric the feat was done!"--Translator.