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78 II. TH B SWEDISH PEOPLE.
Ornäs cottage. Wooden house in Dalarne, from the 15th century.
The period we have just described belongs, without doubt, to the most
romantic epochs of our history. The Peasantry s Periad of Greatness (1434/
1543) is not less full of general human interest than the almost contemporaneous
and similar period in Switzerland, although not so well known as that. The constant
warfare, indeed, waged against external and internal foes of the realm often
possesses dramatic qualities worthy of the genius of a Shakespeare to describe them.
During a time when in the rest of Europe chivalry was already on its decline,
it flourished again in Sweden with a beauty yet further increased by the
circumstance that the knight came into close union with the lowest ranks of
the people, put himself at their head, and, by their aid, successfully championed
the cause of a common fatherland. Such figures of true romantic beauty as that
of Sten Sture the Younger, who was in truth a knight *sans peur et sans
re-proche», are seldom to be found in history; and his spouse, Christina
Gyllenstierna, stands worthily by his side, equal in courage and greatness of soul to
any of the most celebrated women of history. During this period Sweden
produced such statesmen and commanders as Engelbrekt (one of the brightest figures
in the story of the world), and Sten Sture the Elder, under whose rule of
nearly thirty years the intellectual development of Sweden made extraordinary
progress. It was during his time that Sweden obtained its first university,
that of Uppsala (1477), which is, moreover, the oldest in the whole of Scandinavia.
Of the many and varying events during this period, the murder of Engelbrekt,
by a treacherous envier (in 1436), and the Battle of Brunkeberg (1471)
have fixed themselves most indelibly in the national memory. The battle just
mentioned, which was fought by Sten Sture the Elder within the present limits
of the city of Stockholm, ended in the complete victory of the Swedish army
over the Danish King, and secured for our land twenty-five years of peace, a
thing without parallel during the Union period. In the general enthusiasm at
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