of the hand; and one gets white bread and biscuits from the other—for strange fare tastes best.

"But the most beautiful of all is the old Kronenburgh; and here it is that Holger Danske sits in the deep, dark cellar, where nobody goes. He is clad in iron and steel, and leans his head on his strong arm; his long beard hangs down over the marble table, and has grown into it. He sleeps and dreams, but in his dreams he sees everything that happens up there in Denmark. Every Christmas Eve comes an angel, and tells him that what he has dreamed is right, and that he may go to sleep in quiet, for that Denmark is not yet in any real danger; but when once such a danger comes, then old Holger Danske will rouse himself, so that the table shall burst when he draws out his beard! Then he will come forth and strike, so that it shall be heard in all the countries in the world."

An old grandfather sat and told his little grandson all this about Holger Danske; and the little boy knew that what his grandfather told him was true. And while the old man sat and told his story, he carved an image which was to represent Holger Danske, and to be fastened to the prow of a ship; for the old grandfather was a carver of figureheads, that is, one who cuts out the figures fastened to the front of ships, from which every ship is named. And here he had cut out Holger Danske, who stood there proudly with his long beard, and held the broad battle-sword in one hand, while with the other he leaned upon the Danish arms.

And the old grandfather told him so much about distinguished men and women, that it appeared at last to the little grandson as if he knew as much

as Holger Danske himself, who, after all, could only dream; and when the little fellow was in his bed, he thought so much of it, that he actually pressed his chin against the coverlet, and fancied he had a long beard that had grown fast to it.

But the old grandfather remained sitting at his work, and carved away at the last part of it; and this was the Danish coat of arms. When he had finished, he looked at the whole, and thought of all he had read and heard, and that he had told this evening to the little boy; and he nodded, and wiped his spectacles, and put them on again, and said:

"Yes, in my time Holger Danske will probably not come; but the boy in the bed yonder may get to see him, and be there when the struggle really comes."

And the good old grandfather nodded again; and the more he looked at Holger Danske, the more plain did it become to him that it was a good image he had carved. It seemed really to gain color, and the armor appeared to gleam like iron and steel; the hearts in the Danish arms became redder and redder, and the lions with the golden crowns on their heads leaped up.1

"That's the most beautiful coat of arms there is in the world!" said the old man. "The lions are strength, and the heart is gentleness and love!"

And he looked at the uppermost lion, and thought of King Canute, who bound great England to the throne of Denmark; and he looked at the second lion, and thought of Waldemar, who united Denmark and conquered the Wendish lands; and he glanced at the third lion, and remembered Mar

1.

The Danish arms consist of three lions and nine hearts.

garet, who united Denmark, Sweden and Norway. But while he looked at the red hearts, they gleamed more brightly than before; they became flames, and his heart followed each of them.

The first heart led him into a dark, narrow prison; there sat a prisoner, a beautiful woman, the daughter of King Christian IV, Eleanor Ulfeld; and the flame, which was shaped like a rose, attached itself

2. This princess was the wife of Corfitz Ulfeld, who was accused of high treason. Her only crime was the most faithful love to her unhappy consort; but she was compelled to pass twenty-two years in a horrible dungeon, until her persecutor, Queen Sophia Amelia, was dead.

to her bosom and blossomed, so that it became one with the heart of her, the noblest and best of all Danish women.

And his spirit followed the second flame, which led him out upon the sea, where the cannons thundered and the ships lay shrouded in smoke; and the flame fastened itself in the shape of a ribbon of honor on the breast of Hvitfeld, as he blew himself and his ship into the air, that he might save the fleet.3

And the third flame led him to the wretched huts of Greenland, where the preacher Hans Egede1 wrought, with love in every word and deed; the flame was a star on his breast, another heart in the Danish arms.

And the spirit of the old grandfather flew on before the waving flames, for his spirit knew whither the flames desired to go. In the humble room of the peasant woman stood Frederick VI., writing his name with chalk on the beam. The flame trembled on his breast, and trembled in his heart; in the peasant's lowly room his heart, too, became a heart

3. In the naval battle in Kjoge Bay between the Danes and the Swedes, in 1710, Hvitfeld's ship, the Danebrog, took fire. To save the town of Kjoge, and the Danish fleet, which was being driven by the wind toward his vessel, he blew himself and his whole crew into the air.

4. Hans Egede went to Greenland in 1721, and toiled there during fifteen years among incredible hardships and privations. Not only did he spread Christianity, but exhibited in himself a remarkable example of a Christian man.

5. On a journey on the west coast of Jutland, the King visited an old woman. When he had already quitted her house, the woman ran after him, and begged him, as a remembrance, to write his name upon a beam; the King turned back, and complied. During his whole lifetime he felt and worked for the peasant class; therefore the Danish peasants begged to be allowed to carry his coffin to the royal vault at Roeskilde, four Danish miles from Copenhagen.

in the Danish arms. And the old grandfather dried his eyes, for he had known King Frederick with the silvery locks and honest blue eyes, and had lived for him; he folded his hands, and looked in silence straight before him.

Then came the daughter-in-law of the old grandfather, and said it was late, and he ought now to rest; for the supper table was spread.

"But it is beautiful, what you have done, grandfather!" said she. "Holger Danske, and all our old coat of arms! It seems to me just as if I had seen that face before!"

"No, that can scarcely be," replied the old grandfather; "but I have seen it, and I have tried to carve it in wood as I have kept it in my memory. It was when the English lay in front of the wharf, on the Danish 2d of April when we showed that we were old Danes. In the Denmark, on board which I was, in Steen Bille's squadron, I had a man at my side-it seemed as if the bullets were afraid of him! Merrily he sang old songs, and shot and fought as if he were something more than a man. I remember his face yet; but whence he came, and whither he went, I know not-nobody knows. I have often thought he might have been old Holger Danske himself, who had swum down from the Kronenburgh, and aided us in the hour of danger; was my idea, and there stands his picture."

that

And the statue threw its great shadow up against the wall, and even over part of the ceiling; it looked as though the real Holger Danske were standing behind it, for the shadow moved, but this might have

6. On the 2d of April, 1801, occurred the naval battle between the Danes and the English, under Sir Hyde Parker and Nelson.