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Page 64
*Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar, a considerable place, now an
unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains of a wall,
show where the castle once stood.
And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed, and yet as
if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside him.
"Little Tukey! Little Tukey!" cried someone near. It was a seaman, quite a
little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a midshipman it
was not.
"Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising into
importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches: formerly
people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on the sea," said
Corsor; "I have high roads and gardens, and I have given birth to a poet who
was witty and amusing, which all poets are not. I once intended to equip a
ship that was to sail all round the earth; but I did not do it, although I
could have done so: and then, too, I smell so deliciously, for close before
the gate bloom the most beautiful roses."
*Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction of
steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time for a
favorable wind, "the most tiresome of towns." The poet Baggesen was born here.
Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as soon as
the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden there appeared a
wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above stood a magnificent old
church, with two high pointed towers. From out the hill-side spouted fountains
in thick streams of water, so that there was a continual splashing; and close
beside them sat an old king with a golden crown upon his white head: that was
King Hroar, near the fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now
called. And up the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of
Denmark, hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and
the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. "Do not forget the
diet," said King Hroar.*
*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from
King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful
cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are interred.
In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble.
Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him just as if
one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an old peasant-woman,
who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the market-place. She had an old
grey linen apron hanging over her head and back: it was so wet, it certainly
must have been raining. "Yes, that it has," said she; and she now related many
pretty things out of Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but
all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking backwards and
forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!"
said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness
in Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman.
"One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet; it is wet. My
town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, and by the neck one
must get out again! In former times I had the finest fish, and now I have
fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew,
Greek--Croak!"
* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by woods
and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy for the sons of
the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed professors here. The
latter lives there still.
When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked
with great boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring
that little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not do
him any harm.
But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his little
sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair, was suddenly
a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings was yet able to fly; and she
now flew over Zealand--over the green woods and the blue lakes.
"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are flying up
from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very large! You will
suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the world! You will be a
rich and happy man! Your house will exalt itself like King Waldemar's tower,
and will be richly decorated with marble statues, like that at Prastoe. You
understand what I mean. Your name shall circulate with renown all round the
earth, like unto the ship that was to have sailed from Corsor; and in
Roeskilde--"
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