Being desirous of proceeding to Copenhagen, I landed at Nyeborg; together with the Dane and his lady.

The steamer across to KorsÖr will start at four A.M., and so, it being now midnight, we must sleep as fast as we can till then. The politeness of the Danish custom-house officials surpassed everything of the kind I ever encountered from that class. We put up at Schalburg’s hotel. Mine host cozened us. I recommend no traveller to stop at his house of entertainment.

“Morgen-stund giv Guld i Mund,” said the fair Dane to me, quoting a national proverb, as I pointed out to her the distant coast of Zealand, which a few minutes before was indistinctly visible in the grey dawn, now gilded with the sun.

She was quite in ecstasies at the thoughts of setting foot on her dear Zealand, and seeing its level plains of yellow corn and beechen groves, after the granite and gneiss deserts of Lapland and Finmark. Sooth to say, the Danish ladies are not infected with that deadly liveliness which characterizes many of the Norwegians; while, on the other hand, they are devoid of that bland facility and Frenchified superficiality which mark many of the Swedes. How is it that there is such a wide distinction between the Swede and the Norskman? Contrast the frank bluffness of the one; strong, sterling, and earnest, without artifice and grace: and the supple and insinuating manner of the other. The very peasant-girl of Sweden steps like a duchess, and curtsies as if she had been an habituÉ of Almack’s. Pass over the Borders, as I have done, from Trondjem Fjord through Jemte-land, and at the first Swedish change-house almost, you are among quite a different population, profuse of compliments and civilities which they evidently look upon as all in the day’s work, and very much disposed withal to have a deal with you—to sell you, for instance, one of their grey dog-skin cloaks for one hundred rix dollars. One is reminded, on the one hand, of the sturdy, blundering Halbert Glendinning; and on the other, of the lithesome, adroit Euphuist, Sir Piercie ShaftÓn. And yet, if we are to believe the antiquarians and ethnologists, both people are of pretty much the same stock: coming from the countries about the Black Sea, two centuries after Christ, when these were overrun by the Romans, and supervening upon the old Gothic or second migration. It may be said that the Norsk character caught some parts of its colouring from the stern, rugged nurse in the embrace of whose mountains their lot has been cast; with the great backbone of primÆval rock (KiÖlen) splitting Norway in two, and rendering intercourse difficult. So that now you will hear a Norskman talk of Nordenfjelds (north of the mountains), and SÖndenfjelds (south of the mountains), as if they were two distinct countries. But then, if the Swedes did live on a flatter country, and one apparently more adapted for the production of the necessaries of life, and so more favourable to the growth of civilization; yet it, too, presented obstacles almost equally insurmountable to the spread of refining arts and tastes.

They also used to talk, not like the Norwegians, of their north of the mountain and south of the mountain, but of their north of the forest (nordenskovs) and south of the forest (sÖndenskovs), in allusion to the impenetrable forests of Kolmorden and Tiveden, which divided the district about the MÄlar Lake from the south and south-west of Sweden. And is it much better now? True, you have the canal that has pierced the country and opened it out to culture and civilization; but even at the present day the climate of Sweden is less mild than that of Norway, and four-sevenths of the whole surface of the country are still covered by forests. In travelling from the Trondjem Fjord to the Gulf of Bothnia, I found myself driving for four consecutive days through one dense forest, with now and then a clearing of some extent; and as for the marshes, they are very extensive and treacherous. One day I saw two cranes not far from the road along which I was driving, and immediately stepped, gun in hand, off the causeway, to try and stalk them. But I was nigh becoming the victim; for at the first step on what looked like a grassy meadow, I plunged deep into a floating morass. A Swede who was my companion luckily seized me before I had played out the part of Curtius without any corresponding results.

The nation which has to fight with a cold climate and such physical geography as this, is not much better situated than the one which in a milder climate has to wring a subsistence from rocks, and which, to advance a mile direct, has to go up and down twain. Like those heroes and pioneers of civilization in the backwoods, they both of them have to clench the teeth, and knit the brow, and stiffen the sinews, if they want to hold their own in the stern fight with nature. And this sort of permanent, self-reliant obduracy which by degrees gets into the blood, is by no means prone to foster those softer graces that bud forth under the warmth of a southern sky and in the lap of a richer soil, where none of the asperities generated by compulsion are requisite, but Dame Nature, with the least coaxing possible, listens to and rewards her suitors.

Why is it, then, that the manners of these two people are so different? People tell me it did not use to be so. The first and great reason, then, appears to be the different governments of the two countries; the absence of liberty and the excessive powers and number of the nobility in the one, and the abundance of liberty and absence of nobles in the other. The influence of rule upon the inhabitants of a country is, in the long run, as mighty as that of breed and blood.

Improbable as it may appear to some, I am inclined to lay great stress on the influence of a French Court. Bernadotte, it is true, was the son of a plebeian, a notary of Pau; but he was a Frenchman, and every Frenchman is versatile, and gifted with external polish, at all events; and his Court was French, and Court influence did its work, penetrating to the very roots of society; so that by degrees the graces of the capital became engrafted on the obsequious spirit already engendered by long servitude among the Swedish population. At Christiania, on the contrary, there is no Court; the nobility are not, and the country is all but a republic. This is, I believe, a part solution of the problem—a “guess at truth.” While on this subject, I may as well refer to the difference between the pronunciation of Danish and Norwegian, though they are at present the same language. The vapid sweetness which your Dane affects in his articulation, is most distasteful after the rough and strenuous tongue of Norway. It is a case of lollipop to wholesome gritty rye-bread. The Dane, especially the Copenhagener, rolls out his words in a most lackadaisical manner, as if he were talking to a child. Mammas and papas will talk thus, we know, to their babies, the language of endearment not being according to the rules of the Queen’s English. At times I thought great big men were going to blubber, and were commiserating their own fate or that of the person addressed, when perhaps they were only asking what time the train started to Copenhagen, or whether the potato sickness had reappeared.

Going to the fore part of the steamer to get some English money turned into Danish, I find two of those Swiss of the North, Dalecarlian girls, on board. They are from Mora, and one is very pretty. The most noticeable feature in their costume is their short petticoats and red stockings. That most sprightly girl, Miss Diana Redshank, will at once perceive whence it is that we borrow the fashion now prevailing in England. As a matter of course, they were artists in hair, and they immediately produced their stock-in-trade—viz., specimens of bracelets, necklaces, and watch-chains, very well worked and very cheap. They have been from home all the summer, and are now working their way back. In winter they weave cloth and attend to the household duties. I bought a hair bracelet for three shillings.

As an instance of Norwegian slowness, I may mention that although the railway is opened from KorsÖr to Copenhagen, distant three hours, the Norwegian steamer still continues to stop at Nyeborg, on the further side of the Belt, thereby necessitating this trip across, and much additional delay, trouble, and expense.

The novels of Ingemann have made all these places classic ground. The Danes look on him as the Walter Scott of their country. He is now past seventy, and living in repose at the Academy of SorÖ. Denmark sets a good example in the reward of literary merit.

Well do I remember, years ago, meeting a goggle-eyed young man, with lanky, dark hair, ungainly figure, and wild countenance, and nails just like filberts, at a table-d’hÔte in Germany. All the dinner he rolled about his large eyes in meditation. This was Hans Christian Andersen, now enjoying a European reputation, and holding, with a good stipend, the sinecure of Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Hitherto he had been candle-snuffer at the metropolitan theatre, but his hidden talents had been perceived, and he was being sent to Italy to improve his taste and get ideas at the public expense.

If we contrast the fate in England and in Denmark of genius in rags, we may be reminded of the mÄrchen, told, if I remember, by Andersen himself, how that once on a time a little dirty duck was ignored by the sleek fat ducks around, when it meets with two swans, who recognised the seemingly dirty little duck, and protected it. Whereupon the astonished youngster happens to see himself in a puddle, and finds that he is a genuine swan.

What a contrast between these flat plains of Zealand, with the whitewashed cottages and farm-houses—the ridge of the thatched roof pinned down with straddles of wood—and the rocky wilds of Norway, its log-houses, red or yellow, with grass-covered roofs, nestling under a vast impending mountain. In Denmark, the highest land is only a few hundred feet above the sea. How immensely large, too, the cows and horses look after the lilliputian breeds of Norway. There being hardly any fences, the poor creatures are generally tethered: yonder peasant girl with the great wooden mallet is in the act of driving in the iron tethering-pin.

No wonder that in a country so open, superstition has had recourse to terrify the movers of their neighbour’s landmarks. Thus the Jack-o’-Lanterns in the isle of Falster are nothing but the souls of dishonest land-measurers running about with flaming measuring-rods, and crying, “Here is the right boundary, from here to here!” Again, near Ebeltoft, there used to live a rich peasant, seemingly a paragon of propriety, a regular church-goer, a most attentive sermon-hearer, one who paid tithes of all he possessed; but somehow, nobody believed in him. And sure enough when he was dead and buried, his voice was often heard at night crying in woful accents, “Boundary here, boundary there!” The people knew the reason why.

Instead of those dark and sombre pine-forests so thoroughly in keeping with the grim, Dantesque grandeur of the Norwegian landscape, or the ghostlike white stems of the birch-trees, the only trees visible are the glossy-foliaged, wide-spreading groves of beech, with now and then an oak.

I descend at Ringstedt to see the tombs of the great Valdemar (King of Denmark), and his two wives, Dagmar of Bohemia, and Berengaria of Portugal. The train, I perceive, is partly freighted with food for the capital, in the shape of sacks full of chickens (only fancy chickens in sacks!) and numbers of live pigs, which a man was watering with a watering-can, as if they had been roses, and would wither with the heat.

Having a vivid recollection of Ingermann’s best historical tale, Valdemar Seier, it was with no little interest that I entered the church, and stood beside the flag-stones in the choir which marked the place of the King’s sepulture. On the Regal tomb was incised, “Valdemarus Secundus Legislator Danorum.” On either side were stones, with the inscriptions, “Regina Dagmar, prima uxor Valdemari Secundi,” and “Regina Berengaria, secunda uxor Valdemari Secundi.” The real name of Valdemar’s first wife was Margaret, but she is only known to the Dane as little Dagmar, which means “dawning,” or “morning-red.” Her memory is as dear to the people as that of Queen Tyra Dannebod. She was as good as she was beautiful. The name of “Proud Bengard,” on the contrary, is loaded with curses, as one who brought ruin upon the throne and country.

At this moment a gentleman approached me with a courteous bow; he was dressed in ribbed grey and black pantaloons, and a low-crowned hat. I found afterwards that he was a native of Bornholm, and no less a personage than the Probst of Ringstedt; he was very polite and affable, and informed me that these graves were opened not long ago in the presence of his present Majesty of Denmark. Valdemar was three ells long; his countenance was imperfect. Bengard’s face and teeth were in good preservation. Dagmar’s body had apparently been disturbed before.

In the aisle near, he pointed out the monument to Eric Plugpenning, the son of Valdemar. He had the nickname of Plugpenning (Plough-penny), for setting a tax on the plough. He was murdered on a fishing excursion by his brother. The fratricide’s name was not Cain but Abel. There was no luck afterwards about the house; the curse of Atreus and Thyestes rested upon it. Of course, after such an atrocity King Abel “walks,” or more strictly speaking he “rides.” Slain in a morass near the Eyder in 1252, his body was buried in the cathedral of Sleswig. But his spirit found no rest; by night he haunted the church and disturbed the slumbers of the canons; his corpse was consequently exhumed, and buried in a bog near Gottorp, with a stake right through it to keep it down; the peasants will still point out the place. But it was all to no purpose; a huntsman’s horn is often heard at night in the vicinity, and Abel, dark of aspect, is seen scouring away on a small black horse, with a leash of dogs, burning like fire.

Here, then, in Denmark, we see the grand Asgaardsreia of Norway localized, and transferred from the nameless powers of the invisible world to malefactors of earth; while in Germany it assumes the shape of “The Wild Huntsman.”

Returning to the inn, I amused myself till the next train arrived by looking at the Copenhagen paper, from which I learn that twenty pairs were copulerede—married—last week, and that there has been a great meeting of Mormons in the capital. Such has been the effect of the mission of the elders in Jutland, that that portion of Denmark is becoming quite depopulated from emigration to the city of the Salt Lake. There is also a list of gold, silver, and bronze articles lately discovered in the country, and sent to the museum of Copenhagen, with the amount of payments received by each. In the precious metals these are according to weight. One lucky finder gets 72 rix dollars.

By the next train I advance to Roeskilde, which takes its name from the clear perennial spring of St. Roe, which ejects many gallons a minute. Baths and public rooms are established in connexion with it. But it was the Cathedral that drew me to Roeskilde. A brick building, in the plain Gothic of Denmark, it has not much interest in an architectural point of view; but there are monuments here which I felt bound to see. Old Saxo Grammaticus, the chronicler of early Denmark, the interior of whose study is so graphically described by Ingermann in the beginning of Valdemar Seier—he rests under that humble stone. Here, too, is buried in one of the pillars of the choir, Svend Tveskjaeg, the father of Canute the Great, who died at the assize at Gainsborough, in 1014.

Queen Margaret (the Northern Semiramis), who wore the triple crown of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, sleeps behind the altar, under a full-length monument in white marble more than four centuries old. It were well if the Scandinavian idea, now absorbing the minds of thinking men in the North, were to find a more happy realization than in her case—the union, instead of allaying the hostility with which each nation regarded the other, only serving to perpetuate embroilments. Some good kings and great repose here; also some wicked and mean. Among the former, it will suffice to mention Frederick IV., whom the Danes look upon as their greatest monarch. A bronze statue of him by Thorwaldsen is to be found in one of the chapels. In the latter category we unhesitatingly place Christian VII., to whom, in an evil hour, was married our Caroline Matilda, sister of George III., who died at the early age of twenty-three.

“And what do the Danes think now of Matilda?” inquired I of a person of intelligence.

“Oh, they say ‘Stakkels Matilda!’” (unfortunate Matilda), was the touching but decisive reply. So that by the common voice of the people her memory is relieved from the stain cast upon it by those who were bound to protect her, the vile Queen-mother and the good-for-nothing King.